•*?- 


(JOOD-BYE,  DKAR    LITTLE   BRIDE,"    SHE    SAID    TO    POLLY.  —  Pare    l6l 


THE  BINKS  FAMILY 


THE    STORY    OF    A    SOCIAL 
REVOLUTION 


BY 

JOHN   STRANGE  WINTER 


AUTHOR  OF 


'THE  MONEY  SENSE,"   "  HEART  AND  SWORD,"  BOOTLES*  BABY/ 
"THE  TRUTH-TELLERS,"  ETC. 


NEW    YORK: 

G.  W.  Dillingham  Co.,  Publishers 


COPYRIGHT,  igoo. 

BY 

THE  AUTHOR 

COPYRIGHT,  igoo, 

BY 
G.  W.  DILLINGHAM  COMPANY 


The  Sinks  Family. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  THE  BEGINNING  OF  BINKS  AND  SONS  ...  5 

II.  ASTLEY  CRESCENT       ......  19 

III.  TED'S  WIFE 32 

IV.  ROSEDALE 47 

V.  NEW-FANGLED  WAYS      ......  61 

VI.  HINTS 77 

VII.  A  GOOD  START 92 

VIII.  THE  VALLEY  OF  THE  SHADOW  .       .       e       .  107 

IX.  THE  HIGHER  DEPORTMENT 122 

X.  THE  SHADOW  OF  A  CHANGE       ....  136 

XI.  THE  WEDDING        .......  150 

XII.  DOVE  HALL 164 

XIII.  THE  TOWERS    ........  179 

XIV.  REMEMBER     ........  194 

XV.  THE  REIGN  OF  SIMPLICITY 308 

XVI.  TENDER-EYED  LEAH    .  022 


2138973 


THE  BINKS  FAMILY. 

CHAPTER   I. 

THE  BEGINNING  OF  BINKS  AND  SONS. 
"  One  man's  meat  is  another  man's  poison ! " 

I  MAY  as  well  own  up  to  the  truth,  first  as 
last,  and  admit  that  I  was  always  of  an  ambitious 
turn.  I  never  can  see,  myself,  why  ambition 
should  be  counted  (as  most  people  count  it  in 
others)  as  one  of  the  seven  deadly  sins.  It  is  the 
natural  instinct  of  every  human  being;  it  is  the 
word  which  we  use  when  we  are  writing  essays, 
to  express,  what,  in  everyday  conversation,  we 
call  "  getting  on."  Why  shouldn't  people  try 
to  get  on?  My  dear  mother  always  used  to  say, 


6  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

when  the  people  at  our  chapel  persisted  in  calling 
her  worldly :  "  Well,  you  may  call  me  worldly  if 
you  like,  but  it's  my  opinion  that  we  was  sent 
here  to  do  our  duty  in  this  world,  as  well  as  to 
prepare  us  for  a  better.  If  I  goes  to  chapel,"  she 
used  to  say,  "  five  nights  out  of  the  week,  I  don't 
say  I  shouldn't  enjoy  myself  above  a  bit,  and 
hear  all  the  latest  scandal  that's  going  on.  But  I 
couldn't  keep  my  husband's  clothes  tidy,  nor  the 
potatoes  out  of  my  children's  stockings.  And  my 
Joe,  he  says :  '  You're  better  off  here,  Old  Girl, 
setting  at  your  sewing,  and  me  a-reading  of  the 
noospaper  to  you,  than  you  would  be  set  in  that 
there  chapel  a-listening  to  all  the  elders  a-ranting 
about  the  way  to  save  your  soul,  and  a-making 
all  the  silly  women  that  goes  to  hear  'em  that 
dazzled  with  the  glory  of  Christ,  that  they  can't 
see  to  do  the  every  day  duty  the  Lord  has  put  into 
their  very  'ands.'  "  "  Seems  to  me,"  father  used 
to  say,  "  that  them  elders'll  have  a  good  deal  to 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  7 

answer  to  when  we  come  to  reckoning  up  at  the 
end.  I  never  had  much  opinion  of  elders — 
they've  mostly  been  off  color  since  the  time  of 
Susanna." 

Now,  when  I  look  back  from  where  I  am  now, 
I  often  think  that  my  father  and  mother  were 
out  of  the  common  run — father  in  judging  for 
himself  and,  though  he  was  a  regular  chapel- 
goer  and  paid  his  sittings  like  clock-work,  taking 
his  religion  with  a  grain  of  common  sense;  and 
mother  in  sticking  to  him  and  us,  and  making  us 
of  more  daily  importance  than  her  minister  and 
her  chapel. 

Father  was  always  ambitious.  His  early  ex- 
istence had  been  checkered ;  if  all  mother  let  slip 
and  all  our  relations  let  fly  was  true,  his  youth 
must  have  been  as  much  a  mixture  of  good  luck 
and  bad  as  a  chessboard  is  of  black  and  white 
squares.  I  believe  he  had  tried  most  things,  and 
then  he  met  with  mother,  who  had  been  years 


8  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

and  years  in  service  with  an  old  lady  of  title,  at 
whose  death  she  had  come  into  a  nice  little  leg- 
acy, which,  with  her  savings  and  pickings,  made 
her  quite  a  catch.  Mother  was  well  turned 
thirty  when  old  Lady  Anna  died,  but  she  had  ad- 
mirers in  plenty,  and  was  able  to  pick  and  choose 
as  she  would.  And  as  father  was  a  fine  figure 
of  a  man,  and  had  a  very  taking  kind  of  way 
with  him,  he  carried  the  day,  and  they  were 
married. 

At  that  time  he  was  employed  on  a  milk-walk, 
which,  truth  to  tell,  was  how  he  made  mother's 
acquaintance.  Of  course,  after  they  were  mar- 
ried, as  mother  was  quite  well  off,  he  was  not 
going  to  stop  under  a  master  when  he  might  be 
on  his  own.  So  he  bought  a  milk-walk  not  a  hun- 
dred miles  from  where  he  had  been  employed, 
and  they  settled  down  comfortably  to  everyday 
life. 

As  I  said,  father  was  always  ambitious,  and  he 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  9 

got  on !  Not  but  what  de  deserved  to  do  so ;  for, 
if  mother  had  been  a  lucky  bird  to  him  in  giving 
him  the  capital  necessary  to  start  with,  he  was, 
first  and  last,  an  uncommon  good  husband  to  her. 
Never  the  inside  of  a  public-house  saw  him,  and 
when  he  had  finished  his  work  he  always  spent 
his  evenings  quietly  with  mother  in  the  parlor 
behind  the  shop.  I  remember  once  when  I  was 
very  little,  hearing  a  gentleman  say  to  father 
with  a  sneer: 

"Oh,  well,  if  you're  tied  to  your  wife's  apron- 
string,  it's  no  use  asking  you  to  come,  I  suppose." 

"  I  may  be  tied  to  my  missis's  apron-string,"  I 
heard  father  say  in  reply ;  "  and  if  I  am,  I  tied  the 
knot  myself.  When  I  untie  it,  it'll  be  for  some 
one  that  interests  me  more  than  she  does,  and  I've 
got  to  find  her  or  him  first.  Good  day  to  you." 

I  remember  so  well  how  mother  gave  a  sort  of 
choke  in  her  throat,  and  how  she  ran  into  the 
shop  as  soon  as  the  tempter  had  gone,  and  caught 


io  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

hold  of  father  behind  the  big  shining  milk-cans 
and  the  bushy  plants  which  stood  in  a  row  along 
the  counter. 

"  Oh,  Binks !  "  she  cried.    "  Oh,  Binks !  " 

There,  don't  take  on,  Old  Girl,"  he  said  in 
his  rough,  kind  way.  "  I  gets  many  temptations 
to  join  clubs  and  such  like;  but  as  long  as  you 
make  'ome  to  me  what  you  do,  it's  easy  to  say, 
*  Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan.' " 

We  did  not  stay  long  in  that  house,  which  was 
the  second  business  that  father  had  worked  up. 
It  wasn't  his  way  to  grub  along  from  hand  to 
mouth,  making  himself  contented  and  happy  with 
a  fair  profit,  and  laying  by  nothing  for  the 
future.  No;  his  idea  was  to  put  all  his  energies 
into  his  "  walk  "  until  he  had  worked  it  up  into 
a  thoroughly  good  connection,  and  then  to  sell  it 
for  a  good  price  and  start  fresh  on  a  new  lay. 

I  don't  know  whether  the  same  thing  has  even 
struck  you,  but  a  milk-walk  isn't  the  most  pleas- 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  n 

ant  line  a  married  couple  can  take  up.  Somehow, 
it  often  seems  to  cause  quarrels,  and  then  the  hus- 
bands get  led  astray  and  the  wives  get  mad  and 
jealous,  and,  after  that,  everything  seems  to  go 
wrong  with  them.  I've  always  thought  that  go- 
ing round  seeing  so  many  different  servants  had 
a  good  deal  to  do  with  it.  You  see,  every  one  of 
them  has  a  civil  "  good  morning  "  for  the  milk- 
man, particularly  when  he  has  a  taking  way,  and 
they,  perhaps,  don't  get  out  from  one  week's  end 
to  another.  Then,  if  matters  are  not  very  smooth 
at  home,  and  the  poor  man  is  always  torn  be- 
tween his  duty  to  a  snappy  wife  and  the  pleasure 
of  chatting  to  a  smiling,  pleasant-spoken  cook, 
it's  as  likely  as  not  that  things  will  soon  come  to 
such  a  pass  that  the  milk-walk  is  in  the  market 
and  going  cheap. 

It  was  by  taking  advantage  of  these  upsets  that 
father  first  began  to  get  on.  He  sold  his  own 
snug,  flourishing  business  and  bought  one  where 


i2  THE   SINKS   FAMILY. 

the  husband  had  gone  off  with  a  young  woman  in 
the  very  next  street,  leaving  his  wife  behind  to 
do  as  she  liked  with  the  business,  by  way  of  pro- 
viding for  her. 

Now,  it  happened  in  this  case  that  the  wife  had 
been  in  the  dressmaking,  and  knew  no  more  of 
how  to  run  a  milk-walk  that  she  did  of  how  to 
write  stories  in  the  Family  Herald.  So  she  was 
glad  to  dispose  of  the  fittings  and  connection  to 
father  for  a  sum  down  that  would  enable  her  to 
start  again  at  her  own  trade. 

It  was  this  business  that  I  remember.  I  think 
we  lived  in  that  house  for  about  three  years.  I 
don't  remember  going  there,  but  I  do  remember, 
when  I  was  about  six  years  old,  father  coming 
in  one  evening  just  at  tea-time  and  clapping  his 
hand  down  on  mother's  back. 

"  Old  Girl,"  he  said,  "  I've  sold  the  business." 

"  Lor',  Binks,  you  don't  say  so !  "  she  cried, 
looking  half  frightened. 


THE    BINKS    FAMILY.  13 

"  But  I  do.  I've  got  to  go  through  the  books 
and  all  that,  but  the  actual  bargain's  made,  and 
I've  put  my  'and  to  it." 

"  A  good  price,  Binks  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Four  'underd  and  fifty,"  he  replied. 

"  That's  a  good  price,  Binks,"  said  mother ; 
then  added  in  a  sort  of  fright :  "  Not  the  furni- 
ture, Binks?"  i 

"  Nothing  inside  of  them  two  doors,"  said  my 
father,  pointing  to  the  door  which  led  to  the  shop 
and  then  to  the  door  which  led  to  the  yard. 

They  talked  their  plans  over,  and  father  told 
her  how  he  had  to  jump  at  the  offer  or  leave 
it,  as  the  incomer  wanted  to  be  married  at  once, 
and  was  very  keen  on  having  a  home  of  his  own 
to  bring  his  wife  straight  to.  So,  for  the  next 
week  or  two,  we  were  all  in  a  bustle  and  a  scrim- 
mage, and  mother  told  everybody  who  came  in 
that  she  felt  like  being  torn  up  by  the  roots  and 


i4  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

that  she  had  quite  thought  father  had  settled 
down  at  Orpington  Road  for  good  and  all. 

"  My  husband  is  such  an  ambitious  man,  mad- 
am," she  explained  to  one  lady  who  came  in — an 
excellent  customer,  too,  she  was,  that  had  cream 
every  Sunday,  and  on  her  "  at  home  "  days  as 
well — "never  satisfied  to  sit  down  and  take  life 
easy;  always  pressing  onward." 

"Well,  Mr.  Binks,  I'm  sorry  you're  leaving 
the  neighborhood,"  said  the  lady.  "  But  we  are 
not  thinking  of  staying  much  longer  ourselves,  so 
we  should  have  had  to  part  very  soon.  As  to  Mr. 
Binks  being  ambitious,  so  much  the  better  for 
him  and  for  you.  I  believe  in  ambitious  men. 
They  never  waste  their  lives. 

A  very  few  days  after  this  we  left  Orpington 
Road  forever.  To  us  children  the  very  idea  of 
moving  was  delightful.  All  the  house  was  turaed 
topsy-turvy,  and  the  last  daj  we  had  to  eat  our 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  15 

dinner  off  a  shelf  in  the  kitchen.  Even  then  we 
didn't  exactly  know  where  we  were  going,  and 
mother  went  about  packing  busily,  with  alter- 
nately a  joke  and  a  text  on  her  lips. 

At  last  when  it  was  getting  near  tea-time, 
father  came  bustling  in. 

"  Old  Girl,"  he  said,  in  a  loud,  cheerful  voice, 
"  I've  found  a  place,  tip-top,  and  no  mistake 
about  it.  A  shop  like  a  palace,  a  fine,  roomy 
house,  and  the  neighborhood  Ai.  It'll  be  a  real 
treat  working  up  the  connection." 

"And  are  we  going  in  to-morrow?"  asked 
mother. 

"  No.  We  can  store  our  things  in  the  outbuild- 
ings, but  the  shop  must  be  properly  fitted;  and 
we  had  better  have  the  house  done  while  we're 
about  it.  But  you  needn't  look  so  scared,  Old 
Girl;  I've  thought  it  all  out.  We'll  see  the 
things  safely  in,  and  then  we'll  go  down  to  Mar- 
gate for  a  week  and  take  a  little  holiday.  I  can 


1 6  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

run  up  and  down  and  see  to  the  fittings  and  such 
like." 

Mother  gave  a  long  sort  of  sigh. 

"  Binks,"  she  said,  "  a  holiday  will  do  us  all 
good.  We've  worked  hard,  you  and  me,  since  we 
was  married,  and  it's  a  poor  heart  that  never  re- 
joices. But  what  do  you  mean  about  fittings? 
Isn't  the  shop  fitted  already  ?  " 

Father  then  unfolded  all  his  plans. 

"  Old  Girl,"  he  said,  "  I  haven't  found  a  going 
concern  anyhow  to  my  taste.  Buying  a  connec- 
tion is  all  very  well,  but  you've  got  to  take  the 
drawbacks  along  with  the  advantages.  I  'ad  to 
buy  this  business — r'cause  why?  That  we  hadn't 
money  enough  to  keep  going  on  while  I 
worked  up  a  connection.  Now  all  that's  differ- 
ent. I've  taken  a  splendid  shop  in  a  fine  neigh- 
borhood bordering  on  the  park,  and  I'm  going  to 
launch  out  and  cut  a  dash.  Best  of  milk  and 
other  dairy  produce,  and  a  fine  shop  fitted  with 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  17 

all  the  latest  ideas,  to  say  nothing  of  a  good  busi- 
ness 'ead  and  a  civil  tongue  to  manage,  them's 
enough  to  make  any  concern  a  going  concern." 

"  And  there  isn't  a  business  near  by  ?  "  said 
mother. 

"  Not  within  three  streets,"  he  returned,  tri- 
umphantly. 

My  mother  gave  another  sigh. 

"  Well,  Binks,  she  said,  "  you're  not  one  to  put 
your  hand  to  the  plow  and  look  back.  I'm  sure, 
if  you  lay  your  mind  to  it,  that  you'll  carry  it 
through  and  succeed  in  the  end.  For  myself,  I 
haven't  the  go  and  dash  that  you  have,  and  I 
should  have  set  down  here  quite  content  to  the 
end  of  my  days.  But,"  she  went  on,  "  if  I  haven't 
got  your  go,  Binks,  I've  never  been,  and  I  never 
mean  to  be,  a  drag  on  you;  so  I'm  with  you, 
Binks,  in  whatever  you  think  best  to  do." 

"  Old  Girl,"  said  father,  in  a  queer,  rough  sort 
of  voice,  "  if  you  weren't  just  what  you  are,  I 


x8  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

shouldn't  be  any  good  to  any  one.  It  was  you 
made  me  what  I  am ;  it  was  you  give  me  some- 
thing to  work  for ;  it  was  through  you  I  done  it 
all.  I  don't  forget  you  might  have  choose  differ- 
ently, but  you  chose  me,  Old  Girl,  and  you  trusted 
me  with  your  money,  and  I  want  to  prove  myself 
worthy  of  it  and  you." 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  19 


CHAPTER  II. 
ASTLEY  CRESCENT. 

"  It's  a  poor  heart  that  never  rejoices ! " 

AFTER  our  holiday  at  Margate  we  went  back  to 
the  new  house.  Father  had  been  down  several 
times  during  our  stay,  for  the  week  had  stretched 
itself  into  a  fortnight,  but  he  had  spent  most  of 
the  time  in  London,  looking  after  the  new 
premises. 

"  It's  no  partic'lar  holiday  to  me  loafing  about 
doing  nothing,"  he  remarked  to  mother,  when  he 
was  going  back  the  first  time  after  three  days  by 
the  sea.  "I'm  not  like  the  kids,  that  can  take 
their  pleasure  a-grubbing  in  the  sand  and  a-lis- 
tening  to  the  niggers.  I'm  uneasy-like.  My 
heart's  up  there  with  the  new  business,  and  it's 


20  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

change  enough  for  me  to  be  seeing  after  them  fit- 
tings instead  of  going  my  rounds  with  the  cart.  I 
shan't  come  down  again  till  Saturday  afternoon. 

I've  often  thought  since,  when  thinking  over 
the  past,  and  taking  a  lesson  from  what  it  teaches, 
that  the  reason  why  father  got  on,  hand-over-fist 
as  he  did,  was  because  he  put  every  bit  of  himself 
into  what  he  was  about.  He  made  his  business 
his  work  and  his  play,  too.  I  admired  him  for 
it,  and  I  sympathize  with  it  too,  for,  of  all  us, 
I  have  most  of  father's  nature  in  me;  for  I'm 
like  that,  too.  I've  no  patience  with  people  that 
half  do  things,  and  get  tired  midway  when 
they've  set  out  on  a  certain  course.  Perhaps  one 
can't  quite  see  the  end  of  the  journey,  but  it's 
paltry  to  sit  down  and  cry  off  just  because  the 
future  looks  a  bit  dark,  and  things  don't  all  pan 
out  just  as  easy  as  we  want  them  to. 

I  don't  think,  myself,  that  father  ever  knew 
what  it  was  to  be  daunted.  The  new  shop  fairly 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  21 

took  our  breath  away  when  we  drove  up  to  the 
door  in  a  cab  on  our  return  from  Margate.  Our 
Polly  pinched  me  hard  in  her  excitement. 

"Look,  look,  Anna  Maria !  "  she  cried,  "  there  it 

is — all  shining  pails  and  big  windows !    Oh,  my !  " 

It  was  a  shop !    The  walls  were  all  blue  and 

white  tiles,  and  the  counters  were  white  marble, 

.with  brass  edges  that  shone  like  gold.     There 

were  great  green  plants  in  big  blue  vases,  and 

i 

in  each  great  window  were  great  glass  globes 

with  lots  of  goldfish  in  them,  and  at  the  back  of 
each  was  stood  a  great  gilt  cow.  At  the  back 
of  the  shop  was  a  glass  counting-house,  with  a 
window  to  shut  up  and  down,  and  the  floor  was 
all  dark-blue  tiles.  I  had  never  seen  such  a  pal- 
ace of  a  place  before,  and  I  stood  on  the  blue 
tiles  and  turned  myself  round  and  round  as  if  I 
were  in  a  dream. 

"  Is  this  ours  ?  "  I  asked,  feeling  rather  fright- 
ened than  otherwise. 


si2  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

"Every  bit  ours,"  said  father,  stooping  'down 
to  kiss  me. 

It  is  wonderful  how  easy  we  get  used  to 
grandeur.  When  a  few  weeks  had  gone  by,  Polly 
and  I  were  no  more  scared  by  our  grand  new 
shop  than  we  had  been  by  our  old  one  in  Orping- 
ton Road.  At  first  we  used  to  tip-toe  across  the 
tiled  floor,  as  if  our  little  shoes  could  hurt  it; 
but  very  soon  we  played  about  among  all  the 
grandeur  quite  naturally,  and  never  gave  a 
thought  to  it.  At  that  time  mother  always 
dressed  us  in  large  pinafores  of  bright  blue 
zephyr,  and  as  both  Polly  and  me  were  very  fair, 
and  she  always  kept  us  without  spot  or  speck,  the 
customers  took  a  great  deal  of  notice  of  us.  I 
remember  one  lady  in  particular,  who  came  to 
taste  the  milk,  telling  mother  that  she  had  to  be 
very  careful,  as  her  children  were  very  delicate, 
always  ailing  with  something  or  other. 

Mother  took  very  high  ground.     "  I'm  sure, 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  23 

madam,"  she  said — and  let  me  say  here  that 
mother  had  a  very  grand  sort  of  manner — "  that 
children's  health  depends  a  great  deal  on  what 
dairy  they  are  supplied  from.  There's  a  deal  of 
fuss  made  about  oysters,  but  the  harm  oysters  do 
is  not  to  be  spoken  of  in  the  same  breath  with  the 
harm  done  by  poor  milk.  Very  few  people  eat 
oysters,  to  begin  with,  but  every  one  uses  milk. 
Most  dairies  aren't  clean  enough,  and  many 
dairymen  haven't  the  least  notion  where  the  milk 
they  sell  comes  from." 

"  Then  you  keep  your  own  cows,  Mrs. — Mrs. 
Binks?" 

"  We  do,  madam,  but  only  for  a  very  few  del- 
icate babies.  But  we  get  our  milk  direct  from 
three  large  milk-farms,  and  my  husband  employs 
a  veterinary  surgeon  to  see  the  animals  twice  a 
week,  and  twice  a  week  he  has  his  report  as  to 
whether  all  this  is  right." 


24  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

"And  if  it  isn't?"  the  lady  asked. 

"  If  a  single  animal  ails  the  least  thing  it  is 
separated  at  once  from  the  rest,  and  the  milk  is 
simply  taken  away  and  destroyed.  It  is  not  even 
given  to  the  pigs.  My  husband,  madam,  is  not 
a  man  who  simply  buys  so  many  cans  of  milk  and 
sells  it  again  at  a  profit.  He  thinks  out  every 
turn  of  his  business,  and  takes  every  precaution 
against  the  least  thing  going  wrong." 

At  this  moment  the  lady  happened  to  notice 
Polly  and  me  as  we  stood  listening.  "  Are  these 
your  little  girls,  Mrs.  Binks  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Yes,  madam,"  said  mother,  laying  a  hand  on 
Polly's  golden  curls,  "  and  though  I  say  it,  that 
shouldn't,  I  think  they  speak  very  well  for  the 
quality  of  milk  they  drink." 

"  They  do,  indeed,"  said  the  lady,  looking  down 
at  us  with  a  smile. 

After  that,  Polly  and  me  were  in  the  shop  more 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  25 

than  ever.  We  went  to  school,  of  course,  but  be- 
tween school-hours  mother  always  encouraged  us 
to  be  in  the  shop  with  her. 

"  If  they  are  at  school,  Binks,"  she  said  to 
father,  "  why,  I  know  where  they  are,  and  what 
they're  doing;  and  if  they're  in  the  shop  I  know 
what  they're  after,  for  I  can  see  them  all  the 
time.  But  if  they're  out  in  the  yard  among  the 
lads,  or  even  in  the  kitchen  along  of  the  servants, 
they  may  be  picking  up  habits  that  they'll  never 
be  able  to  cast.  And  they're  no  detriment  to  the 
business,  Binks,  while  they've  got  such  roses  as 
they  have." 

"  As  my  Lady  Countess  of  Dreddingham  is 
proof,"  said  my  father,  chuckling. 

"That's  right,"  said  mother.  "  I'm  sure,  Binks, 
you  might  have  knocked  me  down  with  a  feather 
when  she  gave  me  her  card  for  the  address,  and 
me  been  talking  to  her  as  plain  and  bold  as  you 
please.  But  the  Countess  of  Dreddingham's  been 


26  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

a  rare  good  customer  to  us,  and  has  spoke  for  us 
right  and  left." 

It  was  as  mother  truly  said.  When  the  anx- 
ious, sweet-voiced  lady  who  was  so  full  of  trouble 
for  her  delicate  children  turned  out  to  be  a  real 
countess,  and  a  very  influential  one  at  that,  the 
business  increased  at  such  a  rate  that  mother  had 
to  give  up  all  her  work  indoors,  and  to  keep  her- 
self entirely  free  for  the  shop.  And,  as  she 
would  have  things  kept  right  up  to  the  mark,  so 
that  father  should  always  have  a  comfortable 
home  and  a  thorough  good  dinner,  she  kept  a 
good  cook  and  a  capable  housemaid. 

"  None  of  your  untrained  slovens  for  me,"  she 
used  to  say.  "  I  give  good  wages  and  keep  a 
good  table,  and  I  know  exactly  what  I  want. 
That's  nothing  unreasonable — a  fair  day's  work 
done  without  a  misses  dodging  all  day  long  at 
their  heels.  If  the  girls  know  their  work  and  can 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  27 

do  it,  well  and  good ;  if  they  can't,  or  won't,  out 
they  go." 

Then  she  began  to  find  the  sewing  get  beyond 
her. 

"  Binks,"  she  said  to  father  one  day,  "  I'm  go- 
ing to  get  a  mother's  help." 

"  All  right,  Old  Girl,"  said  father. 

"  I  can't  keep  up  with  the  sewing,"  mother  ex- 
claimed. "  Time  was  when  I  could  get  through 
a  good  bit  while  I  was  minding  the  shop;  but, 
now  that  the  business  has  got  so  large,  I  haven't 
a  minute  to  spare  from  the  books." 

"  You  wouldn't  like  a  reg'lar  bookkeeper,  Old 
Lady  ?  "  said  father.  "  The  business'll  well  stand 
it,  you  know." 

"  No,  Binks,  not  yet  awhile.  While  I've  got 
my  hand  on  it  I  know  exactly  where  we're  going, 
without  you  having  to  bother  your  head  about 
it.  If  we  get  a  young  lady  for  the  books,  she 
mightn't  understand  all  the  customers'  little  fads 


28  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

as  I  do.  I'd  rather  go  on  as  we  are  for  a  bit,  and 
have  a  bit  more  help  in  the  house,  which  won't 
cost  near  as  much." 

"  Right  you  are !  "  said  father,  cheerfully. 

So  several  years  went  by,  and  still  we  were 
living  in  the  house  in  Astley  Crescent.  Mother 
always  said  that  she  shouldn't  let  herself  get 
really  attached  to  the  place,  although  she  had  a 
handsome  drawing-room  and  a  piano,  and  Polly 
and  me  were  learning  music,  and  used  to  play  to 
mother  and  father  in  the  evenings  and  on  Sun- 
days. 

"  If  I  hold  it  with  a  light  hand,"  she  said  more 
than  once,  "  I  shan't  feel  the  wrench  when  your 
father  takes  it  into  his  head  that  we  shall  do  bet- 
ter elsewhere." 

But  father  never  did  take  that  idea — no;  but 
he  added  several  other  businesses  to  ours,  and  he 
quite  gave  up  going  out  with  the  milk.  But  then 
he  bought  a  very  smart  pony  and  cart,  and  spent 


.THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  29 

all  his  time  going  from  one  business  to  another, 
seeing  to  this,  that  and  the  other.  And  then,  as 
his  connection  grew  and  grew,  so  did  he  become 
sole  consumer  of  the  various  milk-farms  where 
he  dealt ;  and  also  he  started  a  dairy  farm  of  his 
own  a  few  miles  down  in  Bucks,  and  sometimes 
he  used  to  take  one  or  other  of  us  with  him  when 
he  went  to  see  how  things  were  going  on  there. 

He  had  altered  very  much  by  this  time,  father 
had.  I  can  remember  when  he  always  wore  light 
blue-gray  clothes  in  winter  and  white  drill  in 
summer;  and  latterly,  at  Astley  Crescent,  he 
used  to  have  a  clean  suit  on  every  day  of  his  life 
when  the  weather  was  hot.  Then,  when  he  gave 
up  going  the  rounds,  he  began  to  wear  darker 
clothes,  and  then  to  have  black  ones  like  a  gen- 
tleman. I  can  tell  you  he  used  to  look  as  smart 
as  smart  when  he  drove  away  from  the  door  in  a 
black  frock  coat  and  a  high  hat,  with  his  dogskin 
driving  gloves,  and  his  clean  handkerchief  just 


30  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

showing  out  of  his  breast-pocket.  But  though  he 
was  altered  outwardly,  father  was  just  the  same 
in  himself — a  plain,  bluff,  hearty,  down-right  sort 
of  man  with  no  nonsense  about  him,  devoted  to 
mother,  and  going  straight  on  his  own  road, 
turning  neither  to  right  nor  left  for  any  man  or 
anything. 

Then,  when  I  was  about  fifteen,  a  great  change 
came  into  our  lives.  As  usual,  father  sprung  it 
on  mother  as  a  regular  surprise. 

"  Old  Lady,"  he  said  one  day,  just  when  we 
were  finishing  supper,  "  I've  been  thinking  out 
things  a  bit,  and  I  think  it's  about  time  we  made 
a  change." 

"As  how?"  said  mother. 

"  Well,"  said  he,  "  it  seems  to  me  we've  been 
'ere  long  enough.  It's  done  us  very  well,  'as 
Astley  Crescent,  and  I've  nothing  to  say  again' 
it,  but  it's  time  you  chucked  business  and  took 
your  ease,  as  I  do." 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  31 

"  I'm  sure  you  don't,  Binks,"  mother  cried,  in- 
dignantly. 

"Well,  in  a  way,  I  don't,  returned  he,  laugh- 
ing. "But  all  the  same,  it's  pleasanter  work 
driving  round  in  a  smart  pony-cart,  just  bossing 
things,  than  it  is  driving  round  with  the  milk- 
cans,  no  matter  how  well  shined  they  be.  You've 
got  a  gold  watch,  Old  Lady,  and  a  sealskin 
jacket,  it's  true ;  but  it's  high  time  you  'ad  a  villa 
and  a  conservatory,  and  lived  like  a  lady,  instead 
of  being  tied  by  the  leg  to  the  business  as  you 
are  now.  D'  ye  see  ?  " 

"  I'm  contented  enough,"  began  mother ;  when 
he  broke  in 

"  Aye,  you're  as  good  as  gold ;  but  I'm  not 
contented  to  see  you  a-slaving  'ere  any  longer. 
We're  worth  a  tidy  penny  now,  Old  Lady.  We're 
warm  people ;  and  I  want  you  to  enjoy  yourself 
in  your  way  as  I  do  in  mine." 


3*  THE   BINKS   FAMILY, 


CHAPTER  III. 
TED'S  WIFE. 

WE  did  not  hurry  way  from  Astley  Crescent, 
for,  as  father  said,  going  from  business  into  pri- 
vate life  was  a  far  more  serious  step  than  merely 
changing  from  one  shop  to  another.  But  he  kept 
his  eyes  open,  and  when  he  heard  of  a  nice  prop- 
erty going,  he  would  drive  over  at  once  and  see 
it.  Time  and  again  this  happened,  but  there  was 
always  something  that  turned  him  against  each 
fresh  house  that  he  saw.  Either  it  was  too  near 
water  or  a  railway  ran  in  close  proximity,  or  the 
drainage  was  doubtful,  or  the  set  of  the  house 
was  wrong.  More  than  once  he  declared  tJiat 
he  would  give  up  all  idea  of  finding  a  suburban 
house  to  his  taste,  and  that  it  would  be  best  to 
look  out  for  a  nice,  cheerful  house  in  town.  But 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  33 

mother,  who  had  been  born  and  brought  up  in  the 
country,  longed  so  for  something  of  a  country 
life  that  he  started  off  on  his  search  yet  once 
again. 

This  time  he  went  a  little  farther  out,  and  at 
last  he  met  with  just  what  he  wanted  at  Nor- 
wood, taking  Rosedale  for  one  year,  with  the 
option  of  buying  at  a  certain  price  at  the  end  of 
the  time. 

Then  he  began  to  see  that  he  had  made  a  mis- 
take. 

"  Old  Lady,"  he  said  to  mother,  when  they  had 
just  come  in  from  a  long  day  spent  at  a  great 
furniture  shop  in  the  West  End,  "I've  blundered 
this  bit  of  business." 

"  You  have  ?  "  said  mother  in  surprise.  Mother 
had  a  great  idea  of  father's  business  capacity. 

"  I  have  that  same,"  he  said.  "  See  here !  The 
landlord  allows  so  much  for  decorating — we 
spend  three  times  as  much,  and,  if  we  leave  at  the 


34  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

end  of  the  year,  all  our  money  is  clean  chucked 
away.  I'll  go  down  and  clinch  the  bargain  right 
away,  and  then  we  can  spend  what  we  like  on 
the  place  without  feeling  that  it's  a  waste." 

"  And  if  we  don't  like  it  ?  "  suggested  mother. 

14  Then  we  can  look  out  for  a  place  we  shall 
like,  and  we  shall  'ave  an  extra  bit  of  house  prop- 
erty on  our  'ands,"  said  he. 

He  was  as  good  as  his  word,  and  went  straight 
away  to  see  the  owner  of  Rosedale,  and  arrange 
to  buy  it  at  once  instead  of  waiting  the  year.  That 
was  the  best  of  father;  when  he  once  made  up 
his  mind  there  was  no  shilly-shallying,  for  with 
him  to  decide  was  to  do.  Before  a  week  had  gone 
by  Rosedale  belonged  to  us,  and  he  and  mother 
went  happily  on  with  arrangements  for  furnish- 
ing and  getting  it  ready  for  occupation. 

They  decided  to  take  nothing  away  from  Ast- 
ley  Crescent.  For  one  thing,  my  eldest  brother, 
now  three  and  twenty,  was  just  going  to  be 


THE   SINKS   FAMILY.  35 

married,  and  would  have  the  house  to  live  in. 
As  father  said,  everything  was  suited  to  the 
house  and  to  the  business;  and  though  he  was 
marrying  a  girl  with  a  tidy  fortune,  she  was  sen- 
sible and  saw  things  in  the  same  light  that  we 
did. 

"  And  by  and  by,"  said  father,  "  when  our  Ted 
gets  on  a  bit,  he'll  be  able  to  buy  you  a  villa,  and 
to  furnish  it  new  for  you." 

"  Well,  as  to  that,  Mr.  Binks,"  said  Rosalind, 
with  a  laugh,  "  I'm  not  so  desperately  keen  on  a 
villa  in  the  suburbs.  I've  lived  in  the  suburbs  all 
my  life,  and  Astley  Crescent  will  make  a  nice 
change  for  me.  Besides,  I'd  rather  be  close  at 
hand  and  see  Ted  have  his  meals  comfortable 
than  sit  in  state  in  a  villa,  with  a  rush  to  catch 
the  train  of  a  morning  and  no  one  to  speak  to  till 
he  came  home  at  night,  too  tired  out  to  throw  a 
word  at  a  dog,  like  pa  is.  No !  Astley  Crescent 
will  do  me  very  well,  and  I'm  very  much  obliged 


36  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

to  you  and  Ted's  ma  for  turning  out  to  make 
room  for  us." 

At  this  our  Ted  looked  round  with  a  proud 
smile,  and  mother  gave  a  sort  of  choke,  as  she 
always  did  when  she  was  upset;  and  father,  he 
jumped  up  and  kissed  Rosalind  heartily  as  she 
stood  before  the  fire. 

"  You're  the  very  girl  for  our  Ted,"  he  ex- 
claimed. "  God  bless  you,  my  dear ;  my  lad's 
going  to  be  as  lucky  as  I've  been ; "  and  then  he 
turned  away,  and,  flourishing  out  his  great  silk 
handkerchief,  he  blew  his  nose  as  if  he  had  half 
a  dozen  colds  rolled  into  one. 

As  for  mother,  she  fairly  sobbed. 

"  Yes,  you're  the  girl  for  Ted,"  she  cried.  "  I 
only  hope  you'll  be  as  happy  in  his  house  as  I've 
been,  and  be  as  blessed  in  your  husband  as  I've 
been  and  am  in  mine.  Our  Ted  will  never  have 
to  work  as  his  father's  done,  because  his  way  has 
been  made  easy.  If  the  sins  of  the  fathers  are 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  37 

visited  on  the  children,  so  do  the  children  reap 
the  advantages  of  their  parents  having  been  God- 
fearing and  loving  with  one  another.  The  law  of 
the  Lord  tells  both  far  good  and  for  evil,  and 
our  Ted  is  able  to  marry  to  a  fine  business,  and  to 
begin  almost  where  we  are  leaving  off." 

I  began  to  understand  why  our  Ted  was  so 
taken  up  with  Rosalind  Browne.  She  was  no 
particular  beauty — just  a  tall,  fine-grown  girl, 
with  a  pert  nose,  a  wide  mouth  and  a  glinting 
eye.  But  she  had  a  heart,  too,  for  she  set  herself 
down  on  the  arm  of  mother's  chair  and  put  her 
arm  round  her  shoulders. 

"  There,  don't  take  on,  ma,  dear,"  she  said, 
smoothing  mother's  hair  with  her  other  hand. 
"  I  know  what  you  must  feel  like  giving  up  the 
house  you've  lived  in  so  long,  to  a  girl  you  aren't 
quite  sure  of.  But  it'll  be  all  right,  ma,  dear.  I 
love  Ted,  and  Ted  loves  me ;  and  you  must  try  to 


38  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

think  of  me  as  if  I  was  one  of  your  own  kids  and 
not  like  a  ma-in-law  at  all." 

"  My  dear  girl,"  sobbed  mother — "  my  dear, 
dear  girl ! " 

"  I've  no  ma  of  my  own  to  go  to,"  Rosalind 
w°nt  on  presently,  "  and  there'll  be  many  a  little 
thing  I  shall  want  your  help  in.  So  you  must  be 
a  real  ma  to  me,  and  I'll  try  to  be  as  much  to  you 
as  Ted  is.  And  whenever  you  want  to  come  to 
town  for  a  bit,  you'll  remember  that  this  is  your 
home  as  well  as  mine." 

At  this  father  blew  his  nose  again  like  a  trum- 
pet, and  Ted  looked  as  if  he  was  going  to  cry. 
But  mother  could  always  conquer  her  feelings, 
and  she  pulled  herself  up  sharp,  and,  turning 
round,  kissed  her  son's  intended  bride  very 
heartily. 

"  No,  my  dear,  dear  girl,"  she  said ;  "  I  shall 
never  forget  it.  And  I  want  you  to  remember 


THE    BINKS    FAMILY.  39 

this,  the  first  bit  of  advice  I  have  ever  given  you. 
This  is  to  be  your  home,  my  dear,  and  you  must 
be  its  mistress,  you,  and  you  alone.  Never  give 
up  that  position  for  an  hour  to  any  other  woman, 
not  even  to  me;  or,  as  some  people  would  say, 
least  of  all  to  me.  We  shall  come,  all  of  us,  dear 
girl,  but  only  when  we  are  sure  that  it  is  quite 
convenient  to  you  and  Ted." 

"  Dear  ma,"  said  Rosalind,  "  you  may  be  quite 
sure  you'll  always  find  it  convenient  to  me  and 
Ted." 

That  was  how  Rosalind  Browne  first  began  to 
call  our  mother  anything  but  Mrs.  Binks. 

"  I  don't  wonder  Ted's  so  mashed  on  her  as  he 
is,"  said  Polly  to  me.  "  She  isn't  pretty,  but 
she's  got  such  a  way  with  her,  and  she's  so 
stylish.  The  way  she  says  '  ma '  is  so  different 
to  plain  mother,  isn't  it  ?  " 

It  was  from  hearing  Rosalind  that  we  grad- 
ually got  into  the  way  of  saying  "  pa "  and 


40  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

"  ma,"  Polly  and  me.  I  don't  know  whether 
they  quite  liked  it,  but  Rosalind  always  called 
them  "  pa  "  and  "  ma/'  and  they  couldn't  very 
well  find  fault  with  us  for  calling  them  as  she 
did.  And  they  really  were,  both  of  them,  that 
taken  up  with  Rosalind  that  it  seemed  as  if  she 
couldn't  say  or  do  anything  wrong  for  them. 

We  moved  from  Astley  Crescent  to  Rosedale 
just  three  days  after  Ted  and  Rosalind  were 
married.  Of  course,  we  all  went  to  the  wedding, 
and  Polly  and  me  were  bridesmaids  as  well  as 
Rosalind's  two  sisters.  She  wore  a  white  silk 
gown  with  a  long  train,  with  a  shower  of  tulle 
over  her  head,  and  a  sort  of  little  crown  of  or- 
ange blossoms.  The  bridesmaids  were  all  dressed 
alike  in  pale  blue,  with  big  blue  hats,  and  bangles 
given  by  the  bridegroom.  I  think  the  only  thing 
father  grudged  was  that  Ted  had  to  do  so  much, 
for  what  with  bouquets  and  bangles  and  other 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  41 

things,  his  extras  didn't  cost  him  a  penny  under 
thirty  pounds. 

But.  as  Ted  himself  said,  there's  a  difference  in 
weddings,  and  it's  the  bride  that  makes  it. 

"  If  I  was  marrying  a  girl  with  two  frocks,  and 
no  more  belonging  to  her  than  a  few  things 
scraped  together  out  of  her  own  earnings  in  her 
bottom  drawer,  I  should  have  no  more  expense 
than  paying  for  the  bans  and  the  ring.  But  when 
a  fellow  is  marrying  a  girl  with  a  hundred  a  year 
of  her  own,  to  say  nothing  of  what's  to  follow, 
he  can't  do  things  on  the  cheap  as  he  could  if  she 
had  nothing  tied  to  her  tail." 

"  Which,"  as  pa  said,  "  is  sound  reason,  and  no 
more  than  common  sense." 

Rosalind's  pa  gave  a  splendid  sit-down  break- 
fast, with  oyster-patties  and  champagne,  and  ever 
so  many  other  good  things.  And  there  were  lots 
of  speeches,  and  then  Ted  tried  to  pull  the  bride's 
ring  off,  and  there  was  all  sorts  of  fun.  And 


42  THE    BINKS    FAMILY. 

then  she  suddenly  rose  and  rustled  away  with  her 
next  eldest  sister  to  change  her  white  silk  frock 
for  her  traveling  gown,  which  vas  a  smart  tailor- 
made  costume  of  dark  brown,  worn  with  a  seal- 
skin coat — one  of  Ted's  wedding  presents  to  her. 
And  then  they  said  good-bye  to  every  one,  and 
we  had  a  chance  of  looking  over  the  wedding 
presents,  because  all  the  company  cleared  out  as 
if  it  was  rather  improper  to  stay  in  .the  house  for 
ten  minutes  after  the  bride  and  bridegroom  had 
taken  their  departure.  And  my,  what  presents 
they  had !  Silver  and  glass  and  fine  china  with- 
out end;  and  a  complete  table  service  of  best 
electro  in  a  case,  a  grand  piano,  and  a  lovely 
drawing-room  lounge.  I  wondered  where  they 
would  put  everything,  and  how  they  would  stow 
all  the  silver  and  glass  and  things  away ;  but  ma 
soon  disposed  of  them  all,  in  her  own  mind, 
that  is. 
i  "  Rosalind  will  very  likely  make  the  little  room 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  43 

on  the  second  floor  into  a  keeping-room,  she  said. 
"  If  I  was  her,  I  should  have  it  fitted  properly 
with  white  wood  shelves  and  cupboard.  Then 
she'll  have  a  chance  of  keeping  all  her  pretty 
things  so  that  they'll  be  a  pleasme  rather  than  a 
trouble  to  her." 

However,  she  only  made  the  suggestion,  and 
left  it  to  Ted's  wife — how  queer  it  sounded! — 
to  do  as  she  liked  about  carrying  it  out.  Mother 
— I  mean  ma — like  all  the  rest  of  us,  was  too 
busy  over  her  own  move  to  poke  her  nose  into 
her  daughter-in-law's  business.  And  yet,  as  ma 
said,  we  needn't  have  been  so  fussed  about  it,  for 
we  were  taking  nothing  away  from  Astley  Cres- 
cent but  a  few  little  personal  belongings — orna- 
ments that  ma  valued  above  the  ordinary,  and 
that  she  meant  to  put  in  her  own  bedroom  and 
dressing-room. 

And,  at  last,  we  made  the  move,  and  went  into 
private  life,  leaving  the  shop  behind  us  forever, 


44  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

Polly  was  then  just  on  the  point  of  eighteen, 
being  just  a  year  and  a  half  older  than  me.  The 
night  we  first  passed  at  Rosedale,  as  we  sat  over 
the  fire  in  our  bedroom  doing  our  hairs,  she 
talked  the  situation  over  with  me.  I  must  tell 
you  that  when  we  had  first  discussed  the  new 
home,  ma  had  given  Polly  and  me  our  choice  in 
certain  matters. 

"  Now,  here  are  two  nice,  sunny,  cheerful 
rooms,"  she  said.  "  Would  you  like  them  fur- 
nished as  bedrooms,  or  will  you  still  sleep  in  one 
room  and  have  the  other  for  your  sitting-room  ?  " 

"As  a  sitting-room,  ma,"  we  both  cried  in  a 
breath. 

We  had  always  been  used  to  sharing  a  bed- 
room, Polly  and  me,  and  I  think  either  of  us 
would  be  frightened  to  sleep  in  a  room  alone. 

So  ma  furnished  the  second  room  as  a  sitting- 
room  in  white  and  gold,  and  pa  gave  us  a  little 
white-and-gold  piano.  The  carpet  was  pale  blue, 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  45 

and  the  curtains  were  striped  blue  and  white, 
with  a  gold  cord  at  the  edges ;  and  with  all  our 
photos  and  other  odds  and  ends,  the  little  room 
was  as  dainty  a  little  nest  as  two  young  girls  ever 
had  to  call  their  own. 

"  Now,  Anna  Maria,"  said  Polly  to  me,  as  we 
sat  over  the  fire  that  first  night  in  our  new  home, 
"  we've  got  a  smart  house  and  a  smart  boudoir 
of  our  own,  and  we  must  live  up  to  it." 

"  Is  this  our  boudoir  ?  "  I  asked,  looking  round 
the  pretty  bedroom. 

"  No,  silly — this  is  our  bedroom.  The  sitting- 
room  is  our  boudoir,  only  we  mustn't  call  it  so, 
because  ma's  own  little  sitting-room,  next  the 
morning-room,  is  to  be  called  the  boudoir." 

"  Who  said  so  ?  "  I  asked,  wondering  at  Polly's 
knowledge  of  big  private  houses  and  their  ways. 

"  Nobody  said  so.  I  saw  it  on  the  bell-board, 
and  I  went  and  rang  all  the  bells  till  I  found  out 
which  was  which.  And  then  I  remembered  that 


46  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

that  was  what  they  called  the  room  where  Rosa- 
lind's presents  were  all  laid  out  in.  I  wouldn't 
ask  them  exactly  how  they  called  it,  because  it's 
bad  enough  not  to  know  things  without  letting  on 
to  outsiders  that  one  doesn't  know.  See  ?  " 

I  said  yes;  but  don't  know  that  I  did  see 
exactly. 

"What  do  you  call  it?"  I  asked,  wishing  to 
make  quite  sure. 

"  The  boo-dore,"  said  Polly,  very  distinctly. 

" '  The  boo-dore/  all  right ;  I  won't  forget. 
But  what  are  we  to  call  our  room  ?  "  I  asked. 

"That's  just  what  I  can't  think,"  said  Polly; 
"  but  I'll  tell  you  what  we'll  do.  We'll  keep  our 
ears  open,  and  see  what  other  girls  call  their 
rooms,  when  we  get  to  know  the  people  round 
about." 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  47 


CHAPTER   IV. 

ROSEDALE. 

"  It's  hard  to  sleep  in  down  when  you've  been  used  to 
straw." 

I  THINK  what  struck  every  one  of  us  at  Rose- 
dale  was  the  unearthly  quiet.  I  had  never  been 
in  such  a  ghastly  stillness  in  all  my  life.  Every- 
body knows,  of  course,  that  Astley  Crescent  is 
one  of  the  main  thoroughfares  of  South  Ken- 
sington, and  enough  traffic  went  up  and  down 
the  road  by  day  and  by  night  alike  to  have  woke 
the  very  dead.  I'm  sure  if  one  had  a  cold  or  any- 
thing, one  had  only  to  sit  at  one  of  our  drawing- 
room  windows  to  be  as  well  amused  as  if  one  was 
at  the  play ;  for  what  with  the  cabs  and  carriages 
always  dashing  up  and  down,  the  gayly  dressed 
ladies  peering  in  and  out  of  the  different  shops, 


48  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

the  pretty  children  with  their  nurses,  the  smart 
young  men  on  the  lookout  for  the  smart  young 
ladies,  and  the  old  gentlemen  who  came  to  get 
up  an  appetite  on  the  sunny  side  of  the  way,  why, 
Astley  Crescent  was  a  regular  tableau  vivant,  and 
far  more  amusing  than  any  of  the  tableaux  vivants 
that  they  got  up  several  winters  at  Astley  Chapel 
in  aid  of  the  new  organ  funds.  Exactly  opposite 
to  our  house  was  a  shop  kept  by  a  lady  of  title, 
Lady  Millicent  Goode.  I  used  to  watch  them, 
and  so  did  Polly;  and  I  fancy  if  mother  had 
known  all  that  went  on  behind  the  rose-colored 
silk  curtains  she  would  have  forbidden  us  to  sit 
at  the  windows  which  overlooked  them.  But  ma 
was  always  so  busy  in  the  little  glass  counting- 
house,  or  talking  to  our  customers  that  came  in, 
that  she  never  had  time  to  attend  to  her  neigh- 
bors' business. 

Lady  Millicent  came  across  to  speak  to  ma  the 
very  day  she  took  possession  of  her  premises. 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  49 

"  I  am  Lady  Millicent  Goode,  Mrs.  Binks,"  she 
said,  in  most  pleasant  tones.  "  I've  taken  the 
house  opposite,  and  my  friend,  Lady  Dredding- 
ham,  told  me  I  was  to  be  sure  to  deal  with  you 
for  my  milk  and  things." 

"  I  am  very  much  obliged  to  her  ladyship,  my 
lady,"  said  ma,  very  politely.  "  May  I  ask  if 
your  ladyship  is  going  to  live  there  ?  " 

"  I  am,"  said  Lady  Millicent,  with  a  gay  laugh. 
"  I'm  going  to  start  a  milliner's  business,  and 
I'm  going  to  have  afternoon  tea  going  every  day 
from  four  to  six  o'clock.  So  I  want  you  to  sup- 
ply me  with  cream  and  with  the  freshest  of  fresh 
butter  every  day  but  Saturday.  I  believe  in  a 
half  holiday  once  a  week,  Mrs.  Binks,  don't 
you?" 

"  Well,  my  lady,"  said  ma,  in  her  most  doubt- 
ful tone,  "  I  suppose  a  holiday  now  and  again  is 
a  very  good  thing ;  but  those  that  insist  most  on 


50  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

holidays  generally  insist  on  having  their  milk  de- 
livered just  the  same." 

"  Ah,  I  dare  say,"  said  her  ladyship.  "  There's 
such  a  difference  between  my  holiday  and  yours, 
isn't  there  ?  " 

They  talked  a  little  more  about  the  milk  and 
cream  and  butter  that  would  be  wanted;  and 
then  mother,  who  was  nothing  if  not  fair,  espe- 
cially to  other  tradespeople,  suggested  that  it 
would  be  best  to  send  over  so  many  little  jugs 
filled  with  cream,  and  to  take  back  at  six  o'clock 
all  that  had  not  been  used. 

"  Nay,"  Lady  Millicent  said  quickly ;  it  would 
be  a  waste  to  the  jugs  unless  we  were  sure  they 
would  be  used.  Send  over  a  jug  of  a  size  to 
fill  so  many  little  jugs,  every  afternoon  at  ten 
minutes  to  four,  and  another  at  ten  minutes  to 
five.  Then  if  trade  has  been  slack,  I  can  say  I 
don't  want  the  second  one." 

"  Very  good,  my  lady,"  said  ma,  smiling. 


THE   SINKS    FAMILY.  51 

"And,  Mrs.  Binks,"  Lady  Millicent  went  on, 
"  you  must  be  neighborly,  and  come  and  patron- 
ize me." 

"  My  lady,"  said  ma,  "  I  know  what  trade  is 
far  better  than  you  do.  If  any  of  your  smart 
customers  was  to  see  me  going  in  and  out  of  your 
premises,  they  would  go  elsewhere  for  their 
bonnets." 

"  Nonsense !  Oh,  I'm  not  going  to  do  business 
like  that,  I  can  tell  you.  I  shall  only  get  the  very 
best  French  models,  and  I  shall  only  use  French 
girls  to  work.  I'm  going  to  bring  them  over. 
I've  secured  them  all,  and  they're  going  to  live 
in  the  house,  and  I'm  going  to  make  my  fortune. 
But  I'm  not  going  to  make  it  by  selling  one  bon- 
net a  week  to  my  personal  friends.  I'm  going  to 
have  the  smartest,  most  up-to-date,  most  popular 
bonnet-shop  in  London,  because  my  millinery  is 
going  to  be  like  your  cream  and  butter — the  very 
best  to  be  had  for  money  or  otherwise." 


52  THE   SINKS    FAMILY. 

"  My  lady,"  said  ma,  "  you're  starting  on  the 
right  track,  and  with  the  right  ideas  to  make  suc- 
cess. I  know  what  building  up  a  big  business 
means.  It  can  be  done,  but  not  lightly  or  unad- 
visedly. In  the  words  of  the  Psalmist,  you  must 
rise  up  early  and  late,  take  rest,  and  eat  the  bread 
of  carefulness.  Not,  my  lady,  that  you  mustn't 
take  your  natural  rest,  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
you  must  give  your  whole  mind,  your  whole 
heart  to  your  business  if  you  want  to  make  it  pay 
its  way.  I've  heard  a  little  of  lady  milliners — 
ladies  of  rank  and  position  like  yourself;  they 
try  to  do  two  things  at  once,  to  live  two  lives.  It's 
not  to  be  done,  my  lady,  not  as  a  paying  concern." 

"  But  I  am  going  to  make  that  business  pay, 
and  pay  well,"  said  Lady  Millicent,  in  a  very  em- 
phatic tone. 

"  Not  unless  you  regular  lay  yourself  down  to 
it,  my  lady,"  said  ma,  with  equal  decision. 

"  I  must  go  into  society  to  a  certain  extent,  so 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  53 

as  to  find  my  clientele"  said  she.  "  But  I  am  go- 
ing to  put  my  business  first  and  foremost.  I've 
got  a  good  incentive,  Mrs.  Binks — I've  a  dear  lit- 
tle girl  I  want  to  provide  for  beyond  what  I  have 
already." 

Ma  softened  at  once.  "  I  wish  you  the  best  of 
luck,  my  lady,"  she  said.  "  And  if  to  make  my 
bonnets  or  my  girls'  hats  would  help  you,  I'll 
bring  my  custom  to  you  with  all  my  heart — such 
as  it  is,  my  lady,  such  as  it  is." 

"  Such  as  it  is,"  cried  Lady  Millicent,  shaking 
the  tears  back  from  her  eyes  and  laughing  gayly. 
"  If  this  is  one  of  your  girls,  why,  I  shall  think 
out  her  hats  with  as  much  pleasure  as  I  would 
for  one  of  the  young  princesses.  I'll  let  you  know 
when  the  show  is  ready,  Mrs.  Binks,  and  you 
shall  come  across  as  a  neighbor  and  see  it  with- 
out any  obligation  to  spend  a  penny  unless  you 
really  want  to." 

Thank  you  very  much  indeed,  my  lady,"  said 


54  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

ma.  "  But  we'll  come  when  all  is  quiet — out  of 
regular  business  hours,  if  you  please,  for  the 
same  reason  that  I  mentioned  just  now." 

"  Very  well,  Mrs.  Binks ;  you  shall  have  a  pri- 
vate view  all  to  yourself.  There !  " 

After  that  we  always  got  our  hats  and  ma  her 
bonnets  of  Lady  Millicent;  and  when  Rosalind 
was  getting  her  trousseau  re.dy,  ma  took  her 
across  and  introduced  her  to  Lady  Millicent,  and 
she  got  her  hats  there  too.  And  the  millinery 
business  did  well.  You  see,  Lady  Millicent,  who 
was,  as  ma  often  said,  "  my  lady "  every  inch 
of  her,  wasn't  a  bit  stuck-up  or  haughty,  but  used 
to  run  across  to  ask  ma's  advice  whenever  she 
was  a  bit  nonplused — "  as  one  business  woman  of 
another,  Mrs.  Binks ; "  never  gave  herself  airs, 
but  made  all  her  customers  feel  themselves  wel- 
come; and  if,  owing  to  that  hint  from  ma,  she 
kept  herself  mum  as  to  what  other  customers  she 
had,  why,  it  pleased  all  parties  and  hurt  nobody. 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  55 

But  my!  How  they  did  carry  on  at  No.  30 
Astley  Crescent,  S.  W. !  Those  rose-colored  silk 
curtains,  covered  with  white  filmy  lace  ones,  hid 
a  lot  that  the  outer  world  never  suspected.  The 
customers  were  not  confined  to  ladies  by  any 
means.  I've  seen  more  than  one  gentleman  that 
I  knew  well  by  sight  and  who  carried  H.  R.  H. 
in  front  of  his  name,  drive  up  in  a  handsome  little 
quiet  brougham,  and  step  gayly  into  No.  30,  as  if 
he  was  quite  at  home.  It's  true  that  the  lady 
H.  R.  H/s  used  to  go  too,  very  often,  and  many 
a  time  I've  watched  them  with  the  opera-glasses, 
and  seen  them  at  tea  in  the  large  front  drawing- 
room,  where  Lady  Millicent  showed  her  very 
best  things — lovely  hats  and  bonnets,  a  stock  of 
rare  old  lace  and  a  few  of  the  latest  Parisian  nov- 
elties in  tea  gowns — matinees  she  always  called 
them — and  such-like  things.  I  noticed  that  Lady 
Millicent  always  did  all  the  show-work  herself 
then,  and  that  she  served  tea  and  everything  with- 


56  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

out  once  sitting  down.  But  when  the  H.  R.  H.  was 
a  gentleman,  she  used  to  sit  down  just  as  if  he  was 
an  ordinary  gentleman,  and  generally  she  showed 
the  hats  and  bonnets  off  on  her  own  pretty  head. 
I've  seen  a  good  many  other  things,  too,  but  those 
I  don't  feel  called  upon  to  spealc  to.  Lady  Milli- 
cent  Goode  was  a  real  friend  to  me  in  many  ways, 
and,  as  ma  often  said,  "  What's  never  spoke  can 
never  be  brought  home." 

So  it  can  readily  be  understood  that  after  a 
lively  neighborhood  like  Astley  Crescent,  we  did 
find  Rosedale  almost  too  ghastly  quiet  for  words 
to  tell.  You  see,  Rosedale  stood  in  a  private 
road,  a  sort  of  side  road  well  away  from  any  of 
the  main  traffic.  The  house  stood  well  back  from 
the  roadway,  and  was  approached  by  a  neat  cir- 
cular drive.  It  was  so  hidden  by  laurel  and 
other  shrubs  that  it  was  impossible  to  get  even  a 
glimpse  of  the  entrance  or  lower  windows  from 
the  road  and  equally  impossible  to  get  so  much 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  57 

as  a  glimpse  of  any  passers-by  from  any  of  the 
sitting-room  windows.  It  was  all  very  well  to 
call  it  delightfully  private  and  retired,  but  after 
a  road  like  a  moving  panorama,  such  as  Astley 
Crescent,  the  deadly  stillness  was  quite  enough 
to  drive  any  one  silly. 

"  It's  like  being  in  chapel,  isn't  it  ?  "  said  Polly 
to  me,  when  we  were  getting  up  the  next 
morning. 

"  Awful  quiet,"  I  replied. 

"  I  dare  say  we  shall  get  used  to  it,"  she  said, 
philosophically.  "  If  you  remember,  Anna  Maria, 
when  Lady  Millicent  first  came  to  Astley  Cres- 
cent, she  used  to  complain  so  terribly  of  the  dis- 
tracting noise  of  the  street.  It's  stylish  to  live  in 
a  quiet  place  like  this.  I  shall  make  a  point  of 
always  saying  how  delicious  the  delightful  quiet 
is,  so  different  to  the  roar  of  London  streets." 

"  To  the  ceaseless  roar  of  London  streets,"  I 
corrected. 


S8  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

"  No ;  not  ceaseless,"  said  Polly.  "  Lady  Mil- 
licent  did  say  ceaseless,  it's  true ;  but  we  don't 
want  people  here  to  think  we  came  out  of  the 
Strand  or  Holborn." 

How  clever  Polly  was !  She  seemed  to  pick  up 
every  point  as  she  went  along,  and  to  turn  every- 
thing to  her  own  advantage.  I  saw  the  things 
clear  enough  when  she  pointed  them  out  to  me, 
but  I  don't  believe  if  I'd  been  left  to  myself  that 
I  should  have  made  half  the  progress  that  I  did 
through  Polly. 

As  soon  as  the  breakfast  was  over,  ma  went  off 
to  see  to  her  new  store-room,  and  Polly  and  me 
dressed  ourselves  and  went  out  to  look  at  the 
shops  and  explore  the  neighborhood  a  little. 
And  what  nice,  smart  girls  we  did  see  walking 
about,  each  with  their  dog  and  a  stick,  and  some 
of  them  driving  themselves  in  smart  little  pony- 
carts  ! 

"  How  nice  it  will  be  when  we  get  to  know 


THE   SINKS    FAMILY.  59 

them  !  "  said  Polly.  "  I  wonder  how  soon  they'll 
begin  calling  on  us  ?  " 

"  Not  till  we've  been  to  chapel,"  I  said. 

"  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  that's  not  just  about 
the  truth,"  said  Polly. 

But  we  had  some  callers  before  Sunday  came 
round  all  the  same.  Rosalind  had  a  cousin,  not 
very  long  married,  who  lived  only  about  half  a 
mile  from  Rosedale,  and  that  very  afternoon  she 
came  driving  up  in  a  victoria,  and  sent  in  her 
cards  as  stylish  as  you  please.  Polly  and  me  were 
in  ma's  bedroom  when  Elizabeth  brought  them  in 
on  a  neat  little  waiter. 

"'Mrs.  Joscelyn  Smithers/"  read  Polly— 
"  'Mr.  Joscelyn  Smithers/  Where  are  they, 
Elizabeth?" 

"  The  lady  is  in  the  drawing-room,  miss.  Shall 
I  bring  tea,  m'm  ?  " 

"  Tea?  "  said  ma,  doubtfully.  Elizabeth  was  a 
parlor-maid  we  had  engaged  in  the  place,  so  ma 


60  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

looked  to  her  as  knowing  the  right  way  better 
than  she  did.  "  Wouldn't  you  have  cake  and 
wine,  Elizabeth  ?  " 

"  They  never  does  about  here,  m'm,"  said 
Elizabeth.  "I  think  I'd  better  bring  it  in  as 
they're  used  to  hereabouts." 

"  Well,  if  you're  sure  you  know,  Elizabeth," 
said  ma,  still  half  hesitating. 

"  I'll  bring  it  in,  m'm,  and  the  young  ladies'll 
serve  it,"  said  Elizabeth,  rather  patronizingly. 

"  Why,  oh,  why  didn't  we  ask  Rosalind  about 
this  ?  "  I  muttered  to  Polly,  as  we  followed  ma 
downstairs. 

"We  shall  find  out  for  ourselves,"  answered 
Polly.  "I'd  rather  any  day  pick  up  a  wrinkle 
from  Elizabeth  than  from  Rosalind.  Elizabeth 
won't  always  be  our  parlor-maid,  but  Rosalind 
will  always  be  our  sister-in-law." 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  61 


CHAPTER   V. 

NEW-FANGLED  WAYS. 
"  Everybody  knows  that  '  Pride  is  painful.'  " 

MRS.  JOSCELYN  SMITHERS  was  sitting  in  a  big 
arm-chair  in  the  very  middle  of  the  drawing- 
room,  and  she  got  up  when  we  went  in  quite  as 
if  it  was  her  house  instead  of  ours. 

"  How  do  you  do,  Mrs.  Binks  ?  So  pleased  to 
welcome  you  to  Norwood.  Are  these  your  daugh- 
ters? My  cousin  Rosalind  told  me  what  charm- 
ing girls  you  have.  And  my  husband  saw  them 
at  the  wedding.  I  wasn't  there — no;  in  fact  I 
was  laid  up  with  a  severe  cold,  much  to  my 
regret." 

"Thank  you.  I'm  very  pleased  to  see  you," 
said  ma. 


62  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

"  Won't  you  take  a  seat  ?  Yes ;  these  are  my 
girls — Polly,  the  eldest,  and  Anna  Maria." 

"  The  baby  of  the  family?  "  said  Mrs.  Joscelyn 
Smithers,  with  a  laugh,  as  she  stretched  out  a 
hand  in  a  delicate  pearl-gray  glove  to  each  of  us 
in  turn. 

"Yes,  I'm  the  baby,"  I  said. 

"  And  a  very  nice  baby  too,"  she  rejoined,  eye- 
ing me  up  and  down  approvingly. 

I  tried  not  to  look  to  conscious,  and  then  Eliza- 
beth created  a  diversion  by  coming  in  with  a 
folded  cloth  in  her  hand.  It  was  a  cloth  edged 
with  lace,  that  ma  had  won  in  a  raffle  at  Astley 
Chapel,  but  which  we  had  never  used,  so  far,  as 
it  seemed  too  smart  for  a  tray  cloth.  She  picked 
up  the  little  table  that  stood  near  the  door  with 
the  grandest  air,  and  carried  it  across  close  to 
where  Polly  was  sitting.  Then  she  spread  the 
cloth  on  it  and  disappeared,  coming  back  a  min- 
ute later  with  a  little  tray,  smartly  set  out  with 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  63 

four  of  our  best  cups  and  saucers,  the  little  silver 
tea-set  that  pa  had  given  ma  for  her  silver  wed- 
ding present,  and  which  she  had  never  used  since 
that  day.  She  had  also  brought  a  little  glass  and 
silver  dish  with  two  compartments  that  had  been 
another  of  ma's  silver  wedding  presents,  on  one 
side  of  which  she  had  put  a  little  pile  of  rolled 
bread  and  butter  and  on  the  other  some  neat  little 
wedges  of  rich  plum  cake. 

Polly  got  up  at  once  to  do  the  honors  of  the 
tea-pot,  and  I  saw  her  nervously  clutch  at  the 
sugar-tongs  and  look  towards  Mrs.  Joscelyn 
Smithers  as  if  she  was  going  to  ask  her  if  she 
took  sugar  or  not. 

"  I'll  hand  the  basin,"  I  said  in  a  whisper.  I 
hadn't  sat  behind  the  curtains  in  Astley  Crescent 
watching  Lady  Millicent  and  royalty  with  an 
opera-glass  not  to  know  that  much. 

So  when  Polly  had  poured  out  the  tea  and  car- 
ried the  first  cup  to  Mrs.  Smithers,  I  followed 


64  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

with  the  sugar-basin  and  the  little  glass  and  sil- 
ver dish. 

"  No  sugar,  thanks,"  said  Mrs.  Smithers,  with 
an  airy  smile.  "  Yes ;  just  a  bit  of  your  de- 
lightful-looking bread  and  butter." 

At  last,  when  the  two  ladies  had  exhausted  the 
weather,  the  servant  question,  and  the  advantages 
of  town  against  suburban  residence,  and  after 
Mrs.  Joscelyn  Smithers  had  promised  to  make  us 
known  to  some  of  the  nicest  people  in  the  place, 
ma  put  a  question  on  an  entirely  different  subject. 

*'  And  what  chapel  do  you  patronize,  Mrs. 
Smithers  ?  "  she  demanded. 

"  We  go  to  the  Congregational  Church  in 
Bathurst  Road,"  Mrs.  Smithers  answered.  "  Mr. 
Sutton  Wingfield  is  the  pastor.  I  have  already 
asked  him  to  call  on  you.  Most  charming  people. 
A  divine  preacher.  I  always  tell  him  it  is  only 
his  personal  charm  that  keeps  me  from  attending 
at  the  Church  of  England." 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  65 

Ma  stiffened  all  at  once. 

"  My  principles  are  more  confirmed  than  that," 
she  said.  "  I  could  never  bring  myself  to " 

"  Well,"  Mrs.  Joscelyn  Smithers  interrupted, 
lightly,  "  it  very  much  depends  on  what  one's  so- 
cial ambitions  happen  to  be.  There  is  an  advan- 
tage in  belonging  to  the  Church  of  England,  Mrs. 
Binks,  and  no  dissenting  body  in  the  world  ever 
quite  makes  it  equal.  However,  as  long  as  we 
stop  in  Norwood,  and  Mr.  Wingfield  remains  pas- 
tor of  the  church  in  Bathurst  Road,  we  shall  make 
no  change." 

Then  she  gayly  took  herself  off  to  the  victoria 
still  standing  at  the  gate.  Ma  came  no  further 
than  the  hall  with  her,  but  Polly  and  me  went 
out  to  the  gate.  Elizabeth  was  out  there  talking 
to  the  coachman,  and  holding  a  large  breakfast 
cup  in  her  hand;  and  as  we  all  came  out  the 
coachman  flicked  his  livery  over  with  his  hand, 
after  he  had  touched  his  hat  to  his  mistress.  Eliza- 


66  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

beth  put  the  cup  down  on  the  railings  by  the  gate, 
and  spread  the  light  summer  rug  over  Mrs.  Jos- 
celyn  Smither's  pretty  gray  dress,  in  the  grand- 
est way. 

"  Thank  you,"  said  she,  with  a  haughty  sort  of 
bend  of  her  head.  "  To  Rosamunde  Road."  Then, 
.with  a  last  wave  of  her  hand  to  us,  the  carriage 
moved  off,  and  she  was  quickly  out  of  sight. 

Elizabeth  stood  for  a  second  or  two  watching; 
then,  with  ever  such  a  curious  expression  about 
the  mouth,  she  turned  back,  picked  up  the  cup 
and  saucer,  and  went  indoors. 

"  I'd  give  something  to  know  as  much  as  she 
knows,"  said  Polly,  as  Elizabeth's  black  skirt  dis- 
appeared. "  We  shall  come  to  it,  of  course,  but 
it's  a  bore  having  to  find  out  as  one  goes  along. 
Do  you  like  her,  Anna  Maria  ?  " 

"  Ye-es,"  I  returned,  doubtfully. 

That's  just  how  I  feel.  So  patronizing.  She's 
very  stylish,  though,  isn't  she?" 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  67 

"  Very,  very  stylish,"  I  replied. 

"  Far  more  stylish  than  Rosalind  even,"  Polly 
went  on. 

"  But  not  like  Lady  Millicent,"  I  declared.  "I 
call  Lady  Millicent  real  stylish.  Mrs.  Joscelyn 
Smithers  is  a  bit  too  fine.  She  kind  of  chews 
her  words  as  if  she'd  got  something  in  her  mouth 
all  the  time.  Still,  she'  nice  and  friendly  in  a 
way,  and  we  shall  get  to  know  lots  of  people 
through  her,  I  dare  say." 

"  Oh,  yes ;  we  must  take  people  as  we  find 
them,"  said  Polly.  "  What  a  mercy  it  was  Eliza- 
beth knew  all  about  the  tea!  Cake  and  wine 
would  have  done  for  us  with  a  stylish  woman 
like  that.  I  can't  think  how  it  was  we  didn't 
know  about  tea.  You  see,  ma  was  always  stuck 
in  that  horrid  shop,  so  that  no  one  ever  called  on 
her  as  they  do  here.  But  Lady  Millicent  used  to 
have  tea  going  for  a  couple  of  hours  every  after- 


68  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

noon.  We  ought  to  have  known  it  was  the  right 
thing  to  have." 

"  It  doesn't  matter,"  said  I.  "  We  managed  it 
all  beautifully,  I'm  sure.  Oh,  Polly,"  I  broke 
off  short,  "  there  is  another  visitor !  It  must  be 
the  pastor." 

But  it  wasn't.  No,  it  was  a  lady  with  a  tall 
girl  about  seventeen  with  her,  and  when  we  went 
in,  there  was  ma  set  in  state  again. 

"  These  are  my  two  girls,  Mrs.  Leynes,"  she 
said. 

Mrs.  Leynes  held  out  a  hand  to  us  each  in 
turn. 

"  My  girl  will  be  delighted  to  make  their  ac- 
quaintance," she  said,  with  a  gesture  towards  the 
tall  girl,  who  was  looking  half  nervously  at  us. 
"  Myra  has  been  abroad  at  school  so  very  long 
that  she  has  not  many  friends  in  Norwood  yet." 

Myra  got  up  and  shook  hands  with  each  of  us, 
and  then  Elizabeth  sailed  in  again  with  the  tea- 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  69 

tray  freshly  arranged,  having  left  the  little  table 
with  the  lace-edged  cloth  where  she  had  first  set 
it.  And  then  we  went  through  the  tea-serving 
process  again,  Polly  pouring  out  a  cup  for  ma 
and  carrying  it  to  her,  after  having  served  the 
visitors.  Then  we  settled  down  to  selemnly 
drinking  our  tea  and  eating  little  wedges  of  cake. 

"  Do  you  like  your  new  home  ?  "  asked  Myra 
Leynes  shyly  of  us  two. 

"  Oh,  yes ;  we  were  charmed  with  it,"  said 
Polly. 

"  So  deliciously  quiet  here,"  I  chimed  in. 

"  Too  quiet,  I  think,"  she  said,  a  little  less 
shyly.  "  But,  then,  I've  been  five  years  in  Paris, 
and  Paris  is  very  gay." 

"And  we've  lived  all  our  lives  in  London," 
cried  Polly,  with  a  laugh.  "  So  that's  why  we 
like  the  quietness  here." 

Then  she  began  to  talk  as  girls  do— asking  did 
we  like  tennis,  and  did  we  play  croquet. 


70  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

"  Well,  we've  only  played  when  we've  joined 
a  club  at  the  seaside,"  Polly  replied. 

"  You  ought  to  join  the  tennis  club  here." 

"There  is  one?" 

"  Oh,  yes ;  there  are  all  sorts  of  clubs — tennis, 
amateur  theatricals,  singing,  Browning,  Shake- 
speare, and  several  other  reading  clubs.  I  belong 
to  the  Rossetti  Club.  I  adore  Rossetti." 

I  looked  at  Polly,  and  saw  that  she  no  better 
than  I  did  what  Rossetti  meant. 

And  just  then  Mrs.  Leynes  got  up  to  take  her 
leave. 

"  Then  good-bye,  Mrs.  Binks.  I  shall  hope  to 
see  you  and  your  daughters  on  Tuesday — that's 
my  day.  Good-bye — good-bye." 

Ma  followed  her  to  the  door,  and  Polly  and  me 
went  further,  as  we  had  done  with  Mrs.  Joscelyn 
Smithers.  But  Mrs.  Leynes  just  put  down  some 
cards  out  of  her  case  on  the  hall  table,  and  passed 
out  with  a  civil  "  good  afternoon  "  to  Elizabeth, 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  71 

evidently  not  expecting  us  to  have  followed  theiu 
at  all.  Elizabeth  shut  the  door  and  passed  into 
the  drawing-room,  reappearing  a  minute  later 
with  the  tea-tray. 

"  Now,  I  wonder,"  said  Polly,  as  she  stood 
fingering  the  cards — "  I  wonder  why  she  left  her 
cards  as  she  went  out,  and  Mrs.  Joscelyn  Smith- 
er s  sent  hers  in  by  Elizabeth  ?  " 

"  We  shall  find  out  by  and  by,"  I  said. 

"  Of  the  two  I'd  back  Mrs.  Leynes  to  know," 
said  Polly,  thoughtfully. 

"  Mrs.  Joscelyn  Smithers  had  a  carriage,  and 
Mrs.  Leynes  walked,"  I  said. 

"  Yes ;  but  Mrs.  Leynes  knows  best,"  said 
Polly,  with  conviction.  She  took  the  cards  as  she 
spoke,  and  read  them.  "  Mrs.  Frederick  Leynes 
— Miss  Leynes — Hawkhurst,  Clifton  Road,  Nor- 
wood," she  said.  "  Mr.  Frederick  Leynes — Mr. 
Frederick  Leynes — etc.  You  see,  Anna  Maria,  we 
ought  to  have  our  names  on  ma's  cards  like  this." 


72  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

"  And  ma  hasn't  even  ordered  any  new  cards 
yet,"  I  said,  thinking  how  awkward  it  would  be 
for  ma  to  make  return  visits  and  to  have  no  new 
cards  to  leave  at  the  different  houses.  "  Oh,  ma," 
I  added,  as  ma  came  out  of  the  drawing-room, 
"  you  ought  to  order  new  cards  at  once,  or  you 
won't  have  any  to  leave  when  you  return  the 
visits.  I  can't  think  why  you  didn't  order  them 
ever  so  long  ago." 

"  Well,  you  see,"  said  ma,  quite  apologetically, 
"  in  business  one  doesn't  use  cards  above  two  or 
three  times  a  year.  I  never  gave  it  a  thought.  Oh, 
I  do  feel  so— What's  that?  " 

"  More  company,"  said  Polly  in  a  loud  whis- 
per. "  Come  and  set  down  in  the  drawing-room." 

We  had  barely  got  settled  in  our  different 
chairs,  each  with  our  hands  before  us  doing  noth- 
ing, when  Elizabeth  entered,  announcing  in  a 
loud,  distinct  voice: 

"  Mr.  Sutton  Wingfield." 


THE    BINKS    FAMILY.  73 

Ma  got  up  all  in  a  flurry. 

"  I  am  very  much  pleased  to  see  you,  sir,"  she 
said.  "  It  is  extremely  kind  of  you  to  come  to 
honor  us  so  soon." 

"  I  am  more  than  pleased  to  welcome  you  to 
Norwood,  Mrs.  Binks,"  said  Mr.  Wingfield,  in 
very  suave  and  fatherly  accents.  "  My  good 
friend,  Mrs.  Joscelyn  Smithers,  told  me  of  your 
coming.  A  relative  of  yours,  I  think  she  told 
me." 

"  Not  exactly  that,"  said  ma,  "  but  of  my  son's 
wife.  It  was  kind  of  her  to  make  our  coming 
known  to  you.  I  am  sorry  that  my  husband  is 
not  at  home  to  receive  you,  sir.  He  will  be  hon- 
ored to  make  your  acquaintance." 

"  And  I  am  sorry  that  my  wife  was  not  able 
to  come  with  me  to-day,"  said  Mr.  Wingfield. 
"  She  is  quite  prostrate  with  a  violent  headache. 
She  is  subject  to  them.  But  another  day  she  will 
repair  the  omission,  if  you  will  allow  her." 


74  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

"  I  shall  be  only  too  glad  whenever  it  is  con- 
venient to  Mrs.  Wingfield,"  said  ma. 

And  then  the  door  opened,  and  Elizabeth  came 
marching  in  again  with  a  fresh  tea-tray,  the  little 
silver  pot  full  of  steaming  tea,  freshly  rolled 
bread  and  butter  on  one  side  of  the  glass  and  sil- 
ver dish,  and  a  fresh  little  pile  of  neatly  cut  cake 
on  the  other. 

Ma  cast  a  glance  of  positive  despair  at  Polly  as 
she  got  up  to  pour  out  the  tea,  but  Polly  appar- 
ently did  not  see,  and  served  us  all  alike,  just  as 
if  we  hadn't  had  any  tea  before.  And  so  we  sat 
round  drinking  tea  and  choking  down  our  bits 
of  cake,  until  at  last,  having  made  himself  thor- 
oughly pleasant  and  agreeable,  Mr.  Wingfield  be- 
took himself  away. 

"  If  I've  got  to  go  on  drinking  tea  like  this  all 
the  afternoon,  it  will  be  the  death  of  me,"  said 
ma.  "I'm  that  filled  up,  I  feel  fit  to  choke;" 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  75 

and  she  laid  her  hand  over  her  waist-buckle  as  if 
she  had  an  oppression  there. 

"  It's  safest  to  have  tea  with  them  all  until  we 
make  sure,"  said  Polly.  "  You  wouldn't  like  t<3 
offend  any  one,  would  you,  ma,  dear?" 

"  I  wish  I  was  back  in  Astley  Crescent,  that  I 
do,"  said  ma,  miserably.  "  This  going  in  for  so- 
ciety is  too  much  for  me  altogether.  I'm  that 
filled  up  I  shan't  be  able  to  touch  my  regular  tea 
at  six  o'clock,  and  if  I  go  fasting  right  up  to  sup- 
per time  I  shall  be  faint  for  want.  Three  great 
cups  of  tea,  and  you  filled  them  right  up  to  the 
brim,  Polly." 

"  Why  didn't  you  leave  half  of  it? '  said  Polly. 

"And  let  people  think  my  tea  wasn't  good? 
Not  me.  But  I'm  that  filled  up " 

"  Have  a  little  nip  of  brandy  to  settle  it,"  said 
Polly. 

"  Brandy !  In  the  afternoon  ?  "  echoed  ma,  still 
holding  her  hand  gingerly  over  her  waist.  "  Well, 


76  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

it  was  a  great  teacher  who  said,  '  Take  a  little 
wine  for  thy  stomach's  sake,'  and  I  will  have  a 
tablespoonful  of  brandy,  Polly,  neat,  in  a  wine- 
glass." 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  77 

CHAPTER   VI. 

HINTS. 

"  It's  hard  when  you  come  to  four  cross-roads,  and 
there's  no  sign-post." 

WE  were  quite  nonplused  when  it  came  to  or- 
dering ma's  new  cards.  It  was  easy  enough  to 
write  on  the  paper  of  instructions,  "  Mrs.  Joseph 
Binks,"  and  in  the  lower  left-hand  corner,  "  Rose- 
dale,  Cathcart  Avenue,  Norwood."  But  it  was 
another  matter  when  it  came  to  deciding  about 
our  names.  Ought  ma  to  put  "  Miss  Binks — 
Miss  Anna  Maria  Binks,"  "  Miss  Mary  Binks — 
Miss  Anna  Maria  Binks,"  or  "  The  Misses 
Binks?" 

It  was  no  use  looking  at  Mrs.  Leynes's  card. 
On  that  was  written,  or  rather  printed,  "  Mrs. 
Frederick  Leynes — Miss  Leynes."  That  did  not 
help  us,  for  Mrs.  Leynes  had  spoken  of  Myra  as 


78  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

"  my  only  girl."  Mrs.  Joscelyn  Smithers  was  too 
young  a  woman  to  have  daughters  old  enough  to 
go  visiting. 

"  So  what  are  we  to  do  ?  "  asked  Polly,  in  de- 
spair. 

"  Ask  Rosalind,"  said  ma. 

"  Not  Rosalind,"  said  Polly,  with  decision ;  and 
I  knew  why.  Rosalind  wouldn't  know.  Her 
mother  was  dead,  and  she  had  cards  of  her  own. 

"  I  know,"  I  cried.  "  Get  a  book  that'll  tell  us 
all  about  those  things." 

"  That's  a  good  idea,"  said  Polly.  "  I  wonder 
if  we  could  get  one  in  Norwood,  or  whether  we 
had  better  send  to  town  for  it  ?  " 

"  Send  to  town,"  said  I,  promptly.  "  I  wouldn't 
let  any  one  in  Norwood  know  that  we  had  any 
need  of  such  a  thing." 

"  I  ought  to  be  able  to  remember  from  when 
I  lived  with  Lady  Anna,"  said  ma ;  "  but  some- 
how, I  don't  believe  I  noticed  such  things  one  way 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  79 

or  another."  And  then  she  sighed,  and  said: 
"  I  don't  think  society  will  suit  me ;  but  I  sup- 
pose I  must  go  through  with  it  for  the  sake  of 
you  girls." 

"  Oh,  yes,  ma !  It  will  be  easy  enough  when 
once  we're  in  it,"  said  Polly,  lightly. 

Ma  shook  her  head  as  if  it  would  never  be 
easy  to  her  to  go  on  drinking  one  cup  of  tea  after 
another  as  she  had  done  that  afternoon ;  but  Polly 
had  promised  to  bear  it  in  mind,  and  only  give 
her  a  small  half-cup  each  time,  and  so  she 
wouldn't  find  her  own  hospital  too  trying. 

And  the  next  morning  Polly  and  me  dressed 
early,  and  went  off  to  Astley  Crescent  to  see  if 
everything  was  straight  for  Ted  and  Rosalind  to 
come  home  to ;  and  then  Polly  suggested  that  we 
should  go  off  to  the  Brompton  Road  to  find  a 
good  bookseller's  shop,  where  she  might  get  a 
book  that  would  help  us  out  of  our  difficulties 
about  ma's  cards. 


8o  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

She  was  a  cool  one,  was  Polly.  She  marched 
in  as  bold  as  brass,  and  says : 

"  Oh,  I  want  a  small  book  for  keeping  ad- 
dresses in." 

"  Certainly,  madam,"  said  the  young  man. 
"  Perhaps  this  is  what  you  require  ?  "  As  he 
spoke  he  held  out  a  little  book  about  three  inches 
by  five,  with  a  limp  cover,  on  which  "  Where  is 
it  ?  "  was  printed  in  gold. 

Polly  looked  at  it  rather  doubtfully. 

"  This  is  very  small,"  she  said. 

"  I  have  them  much  larger,  madam,"  said  he ; 
and  thereupon  produced  a  similar  book  of  about 
twice  the  size. 

Polly  asked  the  price,  and  then  said  she  would 
have  it. 

"  Have  you  any  books  on — on  visiting  and  ar- 
ranging weddings  and  such  like  ?  "  she  inquired 
next. 

I  felt  myself  going  as  red  as  beetroot,  but  Polly 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  81 

was  perfectly  cool  and  unconcerned.  The  young 
gentleman  pondered  for  a  minute  with  an  air  as 
if  she  had  asked  for  a  book  on  the  management 
of  negro  babies,  and  then,  with  an  elaborate  air  of 
sudden  enlightenment,  he  said: 

"  Do  you  mean  a  book  of  etiquette,  madam  ?  " 

"  Yes.    Please  show  me  one,"  said  Polly. 

That  was  what  I  admired  in  Polly.  She  could 
be  so  haughty  when  she  liked.  No  one,  to  look 
at  her  at  that  moment,  would  have  imagined  that 
she  had  ever  been  in  a  shop,  except  as  a  customer, 
in  all  her  life.  The  young  gentleman  stepped 
back,  and  then  returned,  bringing  several  small- 
looking  books  with  him,  which  he  put  on  the 
counter  in  front  of  Polly. 

"  This  is  by  the  Honorable  Evelyn  MacSlush," 
he  said,  putting  one  into  my  sister's  hand. 

Polly  turned  over  the  leaves  with  a  critical  air. 

"  To  put  your  knife  into  your  mouth  is  a 
great  sol — sol — solecism,"  she  read  under  her 


82  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

breath.  "  Horrid  bad  manners,  I  call  it,"  she 
muttered;  then  put  the  book  down  and  took  up 
one  of  the  others. 

"  There  has  been  a  great  run  on  that,"  said 
the  young  gentleman,  as  Polly  turned  over  the 
leaves  of  the  second  book. 

" '  Hints  to  a  Novice  in  Society/  "  read  Polly. 
"  See,  Anna  Maria,  this  gives  all  about  both  wed- 
dings and  christenings  and  drawing-room  teas 
and  bazaars.  It  will  tell  just  what  we  want.  The 
price?  Three  and  six.  Then  I'll  take  it." 

"  It's  a  very  small  book  for  three  and  six, 
Polly,"  I  said,  as  we  walked  away  down  the  road. 

"  That  doesn't  matter.  It  will  tell  us  all  we 
most  want  to  know,  and  that's  the  main  thing,'* 
Polly  rejoined.  "  It  looked  to  me  full  of  all  sorts 
of  valuable  information.  That's  the  worst  of 
having  to  take  it  all  up  new.  Poor  dear  ma's 
gone  stodging  on  in  the  business  so  long  that 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  83 

she's  forgot  all  she  ever  knew  of  such  little 
matters." 

How  clever  it  was  of  Polly  to  assume  that,  of 
course,  ma  had  known  all  about  cards  and  after- 
noon tea  and  the  proper  way  to  do  everything !  I 
admired  Polly  more  than  I  have  any  words  to  tell. 

We  got  back  to  Rosedale  just  as  the  dinner-bell 
was  ringing. 

"  No  pa  again  ?  "  said  Polly. 

"  No ;  he  had  to  run  down  to  the  farm,"  said 
ma,  as  she  seated  herself  at  the  head  of  the  table. 
"  He's  been  talking  to  me  this  morning,  girls,  and 
he  says,  come  what  will,  he  must  have  his  dinner 
in  the  evening.  I'm  sure  I  don't  know  how  it  will 
agree  with  him,  uprooting  all  his  habits  at  his 
time  of  life." 

"  Lor',  ma,  you  talk  as  if  pa  was  dead  old ! " 
cried  Polly.  "  If  it  suits  him  better  to  have  his 
dinner  at  eight  instead  of  his  supper  at  nine,  why; 
shouldn't  he  have  it?" 


84  THE    BINKS   FAMILY. 

"  Tea  at  six  and  dinner  at  eight !  "  cried  ma. 

"  Not  at  all.  Tea  at  four  o'clock,  just  a  tray  in 
the  drawing-room  if  there's  comp'ny,  or  in  the 
boodore  if  we're  alone ;  and  then  dinner  at  eight, 
and  a  biscuit  later  on  if  you  feel  a  want." 

Ma  shook  her  head;  and  just  then  Elizabeth 
came  in  with  the  soup-tureen,  and  stood  ready  to 
whip  the  plates  off  one  by  one  as  fast  as  ma  filled 
them,  so  that  we  could  not  say  anything  more 
about  it. 

She  was  in  and  out  of  the  room  all  the  time, 
so  that  we  hadn't  a  chance  of  any  private  talk  as 
long  as  the  meal  lasted.  Then,  when  I  did  think 
;we  were  rid  of  her,  she  looked  at  ma  and  said : 

"  Shall  I  serve  coffee  here  or  in  the  boodore, 
m'm?" 

"Coffee!"    Ma's  jaw  fairly  dropped. 

"  You'll  take  coffee,  m'm,  won't  you  ?  "  Eliza- 
beth asked.  "  Cook  has  prepared  it." 

"  Oh,  yes ;  here — here,  Elizabeth,"  said  ma. 


OH,   GIRLS,  GIRLS,  I  WISH    I    WAS    BACK    IN    ASTLEY  CRESCENT,   IN  MY  OWN 
COMFORTABLE    SHOP." — Page   85 


THE    BINKS    FAMILY.  85 

There  was  a  little  coffee-pot  to  ma's  silver 
set,  and  Elizabeth  set  first  three  cups  and  saucers, 
then  the  little  silver  coal-pan  and  scoop  that  we 
used  for  sifted  sugar,  and  finally  set  the  decanter 
with  the  brandy  and  the  silver  coffee-pot  just  in 
front  of  ma. 

Ma  did  not  speak  till  the  door  had  closed  be- 
hind the  girl. 

"  Are  we — I  mean,  can't  we  have  any  milk  to 
it !  "  ma  asked  piteously. 

"Try  it  without,"  said  Polly.  "If  it  isn't 
the  thing,  it's  better  to  get  used  to  it  right 
away." 

"  It's  horrid !  "  ma  burst  out.  "  Oh,  girls,  girls, 
what  were  we  thinking  of  to  come  out  here  and 
upset  all  our  habits  and  make  ourselves  miserable, 
especially  at  my  time  of  day  ?  I  wish  I  was  back 
in  Astley  Crescent,  in  my  own  handsome,  com- 
fortable shop !  Yes ;  that  I  do — that  I  do !  " 

"  Nay,  ma,"  said  Polly ;    "  don't  take  on  like 


86  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

that !  What's  the  good  of  you  and  pa  being  rich 
if  you  had  to  stay  stuck  at  business  all  your  days, 
with  never  a  bit  of  pleasure  in  your  lives  ?  It's  a 
bit  strange  to  you  just  at  first,  living  private, 
when  you've  been  used  to  putting  business  before 
everything;  but,  after  all,  as  we've  bought  the 
house  and  settled  down  in  it,  it's  best  to  begin 
right  from  the  very  beginning.  We  shall  soon  get 
used  to  the  new  ways,  ma,  dear;  and  you 
wouldn't  like  to  live  different  to  all  the  people 
round  about  ?  " 

"  I  suppose  not,"  said  ma,  drearily.  Then  she 
sat  back  in  her  high  chair  and  let  her  eyes  wander 
round  the  handsome  room,  and  the  table  set  out 
as  if  we  were  going  to  have  a  party.  "  I  suppose 
not.  I've  lived  well  all  these  years,  and  kept  a 
good  table;  but  you've  got  to  be  born  to  using 
your  best  things  every  day,  and  having  a  frilled- 
up  girl  watching  every  morsel  you  put  into  your 
mouth,  and  a-listening  to  every  word  you  let  drop. 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  87 

I  wasn't  born  to  it,  Polly,  and  it's  like  purgatory 
to  me." 

Polly  was  silent.  She  was  devotedly  fond  of 
ma,  was  Polly,  and  she  looked  real  scared  at  this 
new  ma,  so  unlike  her  own  calm,  quiet,  resolute 
mother,  who  had  ruled  over  Astley  Crescent  like 
a  queen.  I  think  for  once  Polly  had  nothing  to  say. 

Then  ma  suddenly  sat  up,  and  began  to  pour 
out  the  coffee  into  the  little  cups. 

"There!  I  didn't  ought  to  have  said  that," 
she  said.  "  It  isn't  like  me  to  repine.  I've  put 
my  hand  to  the  plow  that  you  girls  may  get  on 
and  marry  well,  and  I'll  not  look  back — at  least 
not  yet.  If  I've  got  to  drink  coffee  that's  as  black 
as  ink  and  as  bitter  as  gall  to  help  my  children  on 
in  the  world,  why  I'll  do  it  as  part  of  the  price. 
There,  girls,  forget  that  your  poor  mother  was 
weak  and  silly,  and  pined  for  her  old  life  back 
again.  As  you  said  just  now,  Polly,  we  shall  get 
used  to  it  after  a  bit." 


88  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

•  We  all  drank  our  milkless  coffee,  and  then  we 
went  into  ma's  little  boudoir,  and  Polly  brought 
out  the  two  books  she  had  bought  in  the  morn- 
ing. Ma  didn't  take  much  interest  in  them,  but 
dropped  off  to  sleep  in  her  easy-chair. 

And,  would  you  believe  it,  though  we  turned 
that  wretched  book  over  from  cover  to  cover,  the 
one  point  on  which  we  were  most  anxious  for  in- 
formation was  not  to  be  found !  There  were  chap- 
ters on  manners  in  society,  on  sending  out  and 
answering  invitations,  on  dinner-parties  and  on 
cards  and  card-leaving,  but  not  one  word  as  to 
how  the  daughters'  name  should  be  put  on  the 
mother's  cards. 

"  Of  course,"  one  part  of  the  card-leaving  chap- 
ter ran,  "  your  chaperon  will  write  your  name  in 
pencil  under  hers."  "  If  your  father  is  a  wid- 
ower,"another  sentence  said,  "  your  name  must 
be  printed  on  his  visiting  cards  (underneath  his 
name) ;  and  his  card,  in  this  case,  must  be 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  89 

the  size  of  a  lady's  card  instead  of  a  gentle- 
man's." 

This  was  all  very  well,  but  it  didn't  help  us  a 
bit.  Knowing  what  a  girl  would  do  if  she  hadn't 
a  ma  did  not  help  us  to  decide  whether  we  ought 
to  put  "  Miss  Binks,"  or  "  Miss  Mary  Binks  " — 
"  Miss  Anna  Maria  Binks,"  or  the  "  Misses 
Binks."  Really,  it  was  aggravating! 

On  one  point,  however,  the  book  was  very  posi- 
tive, which  was  that  no  girl  ought  or  could  be  al- 
lowed to  have  a  visiting  card  of  her  own.  That 
certainly  would  be  to  finish  one  right  off  in  any- 
thing like  select  circles.  And  yet  that  very  after- 
noon, just  as  we  were  thinking  we  might  as  well 
go  out  for  a  walk,  a  grand  carriage  dashed  up  the 
drive,  and  a  footman  in  white-and-red  livery 
jumped  and  rang  the  bell  as  if  he  wanted  to  tear 
the  wire  out  of  the  wall. 

"  Mrs.  Binks  at  'ome  ?  "  he  asked ;  and  as  Eliza- 


9o  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

beth  said  "  yes,"  he  turned  and  flung  the  carriage- 
door  open. 

"  'Ere,  James,"  said  the  lady,  "  give  the  girl 
the  cards,  for  I'm  sure  to  forget  'em  as  I  come 
out." 

"  Yes,  *m,"  said  he,  touching  his  hat. 

I  could  hear  every  word,  for  the  boudoir  win- 
dow was  open,  and  the  lace  curtains  completely 
hid  me  from  sight. 

"  Mind  you've  given  enough,  James,"  said  she, 
in  the  same  imperative  tone.  "  And  two  of  Miss 
Potts's  cards  for  the  young  ladies.  Yes;  now 
your  arm." 

As  we  went  through  the  hall  to  the  drawing- 
room,  Polly  and  me  stopped  to  see  what  her  name 
was.  There  were  ten  or  eleven  cards  lying  on  the 
carved  oak  table. 

MRS.  THEODORE  POTTS, 

The  Mansion. 

MR.  THEODORE  POTTS, 

The  Mansion. 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  91 

Miss  POTTS, 

The  Mansion. 
Miss  EMMY  POTTS, 

The  Mansion. 

MR.  ERNEST  POTTS, 

The  Mansion. 

"And  a  carriage  and  pair  like  that!"  said 
Polly.  "  Anna  Maria,  how  are  we  to  make  head 
or  tail  of  it?" 


92  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

A  GOOD  START. 
"  It  is  possible  from  a  corner  to  look  up  to  heaven." 

IF  ever  three  and  six  was  thrown  clean  away,  it 
was  over  that  horrid  book,  "  Hints  to  a  Novice  in 
Society."  It  was  cram  full  of  all  sorts  of  hints, 
it  is  true,  but  it  never  contained  information  on 
any  particular  point  such  as  we  happened  to  want. 
For  instance,  we  wanted  especially  to  know 
whether  ma  ought  to  return  her  visits  alone,  or 
whether  Polly  or  me,  or  both,  ought  to  go  with 
her,  but  not  one  word  on  the  subject  did  the 
idiotic  "  Hints  "  give.  It  told  us  that  a  young  girl 
ought  to  go  into  a  drawing-room  with  a  sweet 
smile  on  her  face,  and  that  she  must,  if  she  wished 
to  make  herself  popular,  take  particular  care  to 


THE   SINKS    FAMILY.  93 

devote  herself  to  shy  young  girls  or  lonely  old 
ladies.  Now,  it  wasn't  likely  that  Polly  and  me 
would  think  of  walking  into  a  room  with  our 
tongues  sticking  out  or  with  an  wn-pleasant  ex- 
pression 0*1  our  faces. 

As  to  lonely  old  ladies,  we  hadn't  seen  any  so 
far.  Mrs.  Potts  was  the  only  old  lady  who  had 
called,  and  she  wasn't  the  kind  of  a  person  a 
young  girl  could  patronize  and  put  at  her  ease — 
far  from  it.  Indeed,  Polly  and  me  both  found 
ourselves,  so  far  as  we  understood  society  in  Nor- 
wood, very  much  in  the  position  of  the  shy 
young  girl  mentioned  in  "  Hints." 

But  though  we  searched  the  "  Hints  "  through 
and  through,  we  could  find  not  one  word  to  help 
us  out  of  the  dilemma. 

"  I  think,"  said  ma,  at  last,  "  that  we  can't  do 
better  than  take  pattern  by  Mrs.  Leynes.  She's 
so  very  stylish — quite  the  lady  in  every  way.  She 
brought  her  daughter  with  her,  so  I'll  take  Polly. 


94  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

Three's  rather  a  handful  to  walk  into  a  room  at 
once." 

So  Polly  went  with  ma  to  return  the  call.  At 
least  she  went  with  her  to  call  on  Mrs.  Joscelyn 
Smithers ;  but  the  next  day,  when  ma  was  going 
to  Mrs.  Leynes's  she  was  fixed  to  the  house  with 
a  shocking  cold,  so  ma  took  me  instead. 

I  must  say  ma  did  look  nice.  She'd  a  hand- 
some black  silk  gown  trimmed  with  lace  and  jet, 
a  little  black  lace  mantle  over  her  shoulders,  and 
that  was  all  sparkling  with  jet  too.  And  on  her 
head  she  had  one  of  Lady  Millicent's  very  best 
bonnets — the  one  she  had  bought  new  for  our 
Ted's  wedding.  It  was  a  pretty  bonnet  that,  and 
well  worth  the  four  guineas  Lady  Millicent  had 
charged  her  for  it  (at  a  special  price,  for  five 
guineas  was  the  original  figure).  It  was  entirely 
of  jet,  with  masses  of  yellow  mimosa  all  over  the 
front,  and  a  high  white  aigrette  standing  straight 
up  like  a  soldier's  plume.  Pa  had  lunched  at  home 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  95 

that  day,  and  he  looked  her  over  approvingly 
when  she  came  down  dressed  to  go  out. 

"  My !  Old  Lady,  but  you  do  look  a  swell !  " 
he  cried. 

"  Nay,  Binks ;  don't  tease  me,"  said  ma. 

"  Tease  you,  my  dear !  Nay,  but  I  mean  it,"  he 
replied.  "  I  don't  know  any  man  whose  missis 
can  'old  a  candle  to  you  this  minute.  You  were 
always  a  good-looking  woman,  old  lady,  but 
you're  like  every  other  woman  living,  you  look 
all  the  better  for  a  good  setting." 

Ma  flushed  up,  and  smithered  her  handsome 
gown  quite  nervously. 

"  Binks,"  she  said,  "  the  worst  of  it  is  I  can't 
get  used  to  wearing  my  best  things  every  day, 
that  I  can't/ 

"  You've  got  a  right  to,  if  ever  a  woman  had  in 
this  world,"  he  said  bluntly.  "  You  helped  to 
earn  *m.  As  for  this  young  popinjay,"  he  went 
on,  pinching  my  ear  and  then  giving  my  hair  a 


96  THE    BINKS    FAMILY. 

good  tug,  "  she'll  never  think  twice  about  wear- 
ing her  best  clothes,  I'll  warrant." 

"  No,  pa,"  I  said,  laughing. 

"  Ah,  well,  you'll  always  be  able  to  have  clothes 
and  to  spare,"  he  said  half  sadly.  "  All  I'm  afraid 
of  is  that  you  mayn't  put  'igh  enough  value  on 
yourself.  Always  remember,  my  girl,  that  even 
if  your  father's  a  plain  business  man,  and  your 
mother  spent  most  of  her  life  helping  him  in  the 
shop,  that  between  'm  they  built  up  a  business 
that  will  make  you  and  your  sister  able  to  pick 
and  choose  when  you  come  to  think  about  hus- 
bands." 

"  I  never  mean  to  make  myself  cheap,  pa,"  I 
replied,  tossing  my  head. 

He  looked  very  hard  at  me  for  a  minute  before 
he  spoke. 

"  Well,  I  'ope  to  Heaven  you  never  will.  It 
wouldn't  be  like  a  Binks  to  thrown  away  a  good 
chance  or  the  substance  for  the  shadder.  So  don't 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  97 

get  reading  too  many  torn-fool  story-books,  my 
girl,  such  as  teach  you  that  all  the  men  with 
money  are  likely  to  hide  you  half  your  time,  and 
that  all  the  fellers  with  eyes  like  saucers  and  in 
sad  want  of  a  barber  '11  make  you  'appy  ever  after. 
When  your  time  comes,  see  that  you  get  hold  of  a 
straight,  honest  feller  that  can  provide  for  you 
apart  from  which  you'll  have  from  me,  and  you'll 
satisfy  your  mother  and  me  as  our  Ted  satisfied 
us  when  he  picked  out  Rosalind." 

"  I'll  keep  it  in  mind,  pa,"  I  said,  as  I  set  my 
big  hat  straight  by  the  big  pier-glass. 

I  couldn't  help  laughing  to  myself  to  think  how 
unnecessary  it  was  for  pa  to  preach  me  a  little 
sermon  on  such  a  subject.  No,  if  ever  a  girl  had 
a  proper  sense  of  her  own  value,  that  girl  was  me, 
Anna  Maria  Binks.  I  couldn't  see  the  sense  of 
love  in  a  cottage  at  all.  It  only  means  a  nasty 
little  place  full  of  damp  and  draughts,  with  one 
little  dirty-faced  girl,  or  perhaps  no  help  at  all.  It 


98  THE   B1NKS   FAMILY. 

means  a  wife  always  grubbing  after  the  dinner 
and  botching  at  her  own  clothes ;  it  means  skimp- 
ing the  butter  and  never  having  cream,  and  not 
daring  to  buy  new-laid  eggs,  but  having  to  con- 
tent one's  self  with  "  fresh  "  ones  a  month  old ; 
it  means  back  seats  in  chapel  and  mended  finger- 
ends  :  it  means  tramping  along  to  save  a  bus,  and 
never  daring  to  think  of  a  cab ;  it  means  inferior 
cuts  at  the  butcher's,  and  living  in  a  bad  neighbor- 
hood. And,  besides  these,  it  means  everything 
squalid  and  horrid,  everything  screwed  and 
nipped  to  the  last  point ;  it  means  social  ruin,  for 
who  can  get  on  in  society  without  money?  It 
means  the  end  and  death  of  ambition,  for  who  can 
hope  to  improve  themselves  one  way  or  another 
if  they've  got  to  be  reckoning  halfpennies  all  the 
days  of  their  life  ?  No ;  no  love  in  a  cottage  for 
me !  When  I  marry  I  want  a  house  at  least  as 
handsome  as  Rosedale.  I  want  a  victoria  of  my 
own,  and  a  brougham  fo?  wet  days  and  night- 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  99 

work.  I  want  a  maid  and  a  boudoir,  and  a  white 
Maltese  poodle,  washed  and  combed  every  day, 
with  a  parting  right  down  his  back  showing  all 
his  pretty  pink  skin,  and  a  silver  collar  with  a 
ring  of  bells  round  his  neck;  and  one  doesn't 
get  these  things  with  love  in  a  cottage.  I  remem- 
ber reading  a  story  once  in  the  Family  Novelist. 
It  started  quite  pretty  about  a  young  girl  who  was 
governess  in  a  nobleman's  family,  and  everybody 
fell  in  love  with  her  because  of  her  beauty  and  her 
high-bred  grace.  Her  father  had  been  a  poor  min- 
ister, her  mother  an  actress.  She  was  slight  and 
fair,  with  great  eyes  like  wood  violets  set  in 
fringes  black  as  midnight;  a  sweet  mouth  like 
Cupid's  bow ;  a  dear  little  straight  nose ;  and 
masses  of  waving  hair  like  the  setting  sun  (I  sup- 
pose it  meant  carroty).  Of  course,  the  noble- 
man's son  and  all  his  friends  home  from  college 
fell  in  love  with  her ;  but  she  was  true  to  her  own 
lover,  a  struggling  literary  gentleman  living  in 


ioo  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

a  garret  in  London  on  about  twopence-halfpenny 
a  day  (which  meant  only  having  a  clean  collar 
about  once  a  week,  you  know),  working  to  make 
a  name  for  her. 

The  rich  young  man  offered  her  diamonds  and 
everything  that  money  could  buy;  but  the  girl 
with  hair  like  the  setting  sun  set  her  face  like 
a  stone,  and  steadfastly  refused  him. 

"  Diamonds !  "  she  murmured.  "  What  are  dia- 
monds beside  my  own  love's  dear  blue  tur- 
quoises ?  "  And  then  she  kissed  the  poor  little 
ring  that  Lionel  Trevor  had  denied  himself  food 
to  buy  as  a  pledge  of  his  eternal  and  undying 
love ;  and  tears  stood  in  the  sweet  violet  eyes,  as 
the  dew  of  morning  pearls  or  the  sweet  wild  vio- 
lets in  the  hedgerows. 

Now,  isn't  it  rubbish?  As  if  any  girl  in  her 
senses  would  ask,  "  What  are  diamonds  ?  "  As 
if  any  girl  in  her  ordinary  senses  would  refuse 
a  lord's- son  and  diamonds  for  the  sake  of  a  poor 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  ici 

thing  setting  scribbling  in  a  garret,  who  had  to 
go  without  butter  and  other  things  for  weeks  that 
he  might  spend  seventeen-and-six  over  a  little 
blue  ring  in  some  pawn-shop.  It  isn't  even  ordi- 
nary common  sense.  I  could  understand  a  rich 
girl  like  Miss  Eames — Eames's  Food,  you  know 
— marrying  the  minister  of  their  chapel,  as  she 
did.  She  had  such  a  lot  of  money  that  she  didn't 
want  any  more,  and  he  was  Mark  Andrew  Dane, 
whose  name  was  known  as  a  preacher  all  over 
England.  To  be  Mrs.  Mark  Andrew  Dane  was 
something,  and  as  she  herself  thought  so,  she  was 
quite  right  to  have  him  if  she  wanted.  Mrs. 
Mark  Andrew  Dane  isn't  like  most  popular  min- 
isters' wives,  who,  however  popular  their  hus- 
bands happen  to  be  have  to  suck  up  to  their  con- 
gregations. She  doesn't  care  a  dump  what  the 
congregation  thinks.  She  has  bigger  diamonds 
and  smarter  carriages,  and  more  sables  and  serv- 
ants than  any  of  them,  and  they  spend  their  time 


102  THE    BINKS    FAMILY. 

sucking  up  to  her  instead  of  her  sucking  up  to 
them.  But  marrying  like  that  is  different  to  upset- 
ting all  one's  family  by  giving  one's  self  way  cheap, 
perhaps  to  a  little  clerk  with  eighty  pounds  a  year, 
and  have  to  wear  a  black  coat  all  the  week.  That 
certainly  ain't  good  enough — at  least,  not  for  me. 
Mrs.  Leynes's  house  was  only  two  roads  away 
from  us.  We  found  it  quite  easily — a  large,  hand- 
some villa,  nearly  as  nice  as  Rosedale,  with  a  red 
lamp  over  the  drive-gate,  and  a  neat  brass  plate, 
with  "  Mr.  Leynes,  Surgeon,"  engraved  upon  it, 
on  the  gate-post.  We  went  up  the  drive  and  rang 
at  the  bell,  which  was  answered  at  once  by  a 
parlor-maid,  just  after  the  same  pattern  as  our 
Elizabeth.  She  replied  to  ma's  question  as  to 
whether  Mrs.  Leynes  was  at  home  by  flinging 
the  door  as  wide  open  as  it  would  go.  I  felt  just 
as  I  always  feel  in  some  of  the  West  End  drapery 
shops,  when  a  young  lady,  dressed  in  trailing 
black  silk,  like  a  duchess,  comes  sailing  up,  and 


THE    BINKS   FAMILY.  103 

makes  you  feel  as  if  you'd  crept  in  without  leave. 
Ma,  however,  never  seemed  to  feel  that.  To  her 
a  servant  was  a  servant  except  at  meals.  Then 
they  worried  her. 

She  followed  Airs.  Leynes's  maid  across  the 
entrance-hall  to  a  room  at  the  back  of  the  house. 
Then  she  stopped  with  hei  hand  on  the  knob  of  the 
door,  and  said,  "What  name  shall  I  say,  ma'am?" 

"  Mrs.  Binks,"  said  ma,  holding  tight  on  to  her 
new  silver  card-case. 

Then  the  girl  flung  open  the  door,  and  said  in 
a  very  loud,  sharp  voice: 

"  Mrs.— and— Miss— BINKS." 

There  seemed  to  be  quite  a  buzz  of  voices  when 
the  door  opened,  but  they  hushed  as  if  by  magic 
as  ma  and  I  went  into  the  room.  It  was  a  long 
room,  with  a  door  opening  into  a  conservatory  at 
one  side,  and  at  the  end  a  large  window  looking 
into  the  garden. 

Mrs.  Leynes  came  forward  to  meet  us.    "  So 


io4  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

pleased  to  see  you,"  she  said  cordially.  "  How  do 
you  do,  dear?  Myra,  here  is  Miss  Binks.  Come 
and  sit  by  me,  Mrs.  Binks.  Let  me  make  you 
known  to  my  sister,  Mrs.  Frayling.  Mrs.  Ham- 
mond, this  is  a  quite  near  neighbor  of  yours,  Mrs. 
Binks,  who  has  just  come  to  Rosedale." 

Ma  disappeared,  as  it  were,  among  these  ladies, 
leaving  me  standing  by  Myra.  She,  however, 
soon  set  me  at  my  ease. 

"  I  have  to  keep  by  the  tea-table,"  she  said ;  "  so 
do  come  and  sit  by  me.  Mother  hates  tea  brought 
in  poured  out  as  some  people  have  it,  but  when  she 
has  a  room  full,  it  keeps  one  very  busy,  I  can  tell 
you.  How  is  your  sister?  Why  didn't  she  come?" 

I  gathered  from  this  that  ma  could  well  have 
brought  us  both  if  she  had  liked.  After  that  I 
began  to  see  that  Polly  had  not  wasted  the  three- 
and-six  she  gave  for  "Hints."  I  remembered 
one  passage — "  When  once  you  have  mastered 
the  laws  of  etiquette,  you  will  never  be  in  doubt 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  105 

what  to  do,  and  the  embarrassment  you  suffer 
from  now  will  all  pass  away.  Ease  of  manner  is 
not  attained  by  carelessness,  but  by  knowledge. 
Knowledge  is  power  in  society  as  elsewhere." 

There  was  sound  common  sense  in  that.  Now 
I  knew  that  ma  could  take  us  both  about  with 
her,  so  I  and  Polly  wouldn't  feel  shy  when  we 
went  into  strange  rooms.  "  Hints "  was  quite 
right — knowledge  is  power. 

Myra  Leynes  carried  a  cup  of  tea  to  ma,  and 
then  took  the  cake-dish  to  her.  I  saw  that  Eliza- 
beth had  been  quite  right  when  she  had  set  out 
our  tea-table,  but  the  Leyneses  had  a  much  larger 
tea-service,  and  the  tray  was  silver  too,  and  had 
a  picture  in  the  middle  of  a  bird  standing  on  a 
little  bar,  and  then  words  I  couldn't  read  under- 
neath. Of  course,  I  only  caught  a  glimpse  of  the 
picture  on  the  tea-tray,  and  I  shouldn't  have 
known  what  it  was  if  I  hadn't  seen  the  same  little 
thing  like  a  trade  mark  on  the  tea-spoon  in  my 


io6  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

saucer.  I  determined  to  look  in  "  Hints  "  and 
see  why  some  people  had  letters  and  some  people 
had  little  pictures  on  their  tea-spoons. 

More  and  more  people  kept  coming  in,  and  a 
few  went  out,  but  not  many,  and  the  room  got 
fuller  and  fuller,  and  poor  Myra  got  busier  and 
busier,  until  at  last  I  said: 

"  Can't  I  hand  that  cake-dish  round  for  you  ?  " 

"  Oh,  do ;    There's  a  dear,"  in  a  tone  of  relief. 

So  I  started  round  with  the  cake-dish,  and 
everybody  spoke  to  me,  and  said,  "  Oh,  thank 
you,  dear,"  as  if  I  had  done  something  wonderful. 
I  thought  of  "  Hints  "  again.  "  Do  not  under- 
rate yourself,  my  young  reader.  A  bright  young 
face  is  always  welcome,  especially  if  you  behave 
so  as  to  be  an  assistance  to  your  hostess  instead  of 
an  inconvenience."  I  felt  that  Mrs.  Leynes  and 
every  one  was  pleased  I  had  handed  the  cake,  and 
I  made  up  my  mind  I  would  study  "  Hints  "  till 
I  knew  every  word  of  it  by  heart. 


.THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  107 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

THE  VALLEY  OF  THE  SHADOW. 
"  Adversity  tries  friends  as  aqua  fortis  tries  gold." 

WE  found  Polly  very  poorly  when  we  got  home, 
and  that  same  evening  ma  sent  for  Dr.  Leynes, 
whom  we  hadn't  seen  when  we  called  in  the 
afternoon.  He  came  round  in  about  a  quarter 
of  an  hour.  And  my  word,  if  Mrs.  Leynes  was 
stylish,  so  was  he — a  very  tall,  fair  man,  clean- 
shaved  and  thin,  with  hair  just  growing  gray,  and 
a  pair  of  coldish  gray  eyes.  He  was  in  evening 
dress,  too,  only  with  a  short  jacket  instead  of  a 
cut-away  coat. 

If  he  looked  cold,  his  manner  was  kind  enough 
for  any  one. 


io8  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

"  I  hope  it  is  nothing  serious,  Mrs.  Binks,"  he 
said,  taking  ma's  hand  and  holding  it  just  as  if 
he'd  known  her  all  her  life. 

"  Well,  I  hope  not,  doctor,"  says  ma.  "  My 
eldest  girl  has  been  ailing  all  day,  and  she  seems 
very  hot  and  restless  to-night,  so  I  thought  I'd 
rather  make  quite  sure  by  sending  for  you  early." 

"And  quite  right  too.  And  will  you  let  me 
see  her?  "he  said. 

"  Come  this  way,  doctor,"  said  ma. 

I  followed  them  softly.  I  was  trembling  all 
over,  for  I  felt  Polly  was  going  to  be  very  ill. 
And  Polly  was  my  only  sister,  my  best  friend. 
Much  as  I  loved  pa  and  ma  and  the  three  boys, 
it  was  Polly  that  had  my  heart,  it  was  Polly  I 
simply  adored. 

I  really  loved  the  doctor  for  the  way  in  which 
he  went  into  the  room  and  walked  quietly  up  to 
the  bed. 

Well,  young  lady,  you've  sent  for  me  very 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  109 

early  after  taking  possession  of  your  nice  new 
house.  What's  amiss  ?  "  he  asked. 

"I  don't  know,  doctor,"  said  Polly;  "but  I 
feel  very  bad." 

He  asked  a  few  questions,  listened  to  her  chest 
through  an  instrument  fixed  to  his  ears,  and  then 
took  her  temperature. 

"  I'll  send  you  something  round  in  a  few  min- 
utes," he  said,  soothingly.  "  And  you  must  try  to 
keep  as  quiet  as  you  can,  and  drink  nothing  but 
milk,  with  a  little  sodawater  in  it." 

"  I'm  thirsty,"  said  Polly. 

"  Yes,  I  dare  say.  Milk  and  soda  will  quench' 
your  thirst  better  than  anything.  I'll  look  in 
early  in  the  morning  and  see  how  you  are.  Prob- 
ably it  will  all  have  passed  away  by  then." 

He  bade  her  "  Good  night,"  and  went  out  of 
the  room,  ma  and  me  following  him. 

"  Mrs.  Binks,"  he  asked,  as  we  reached  the 
hal!,  "  what  kind  of  general  health  has  she?  " 


no  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

"  Splendid— couldn't  be  better,"  said  ma.  "  I've 
never  known  her  to  ail  a  thing  since  she  had  the 
measles  and  the  whooping-cough." 

"  H'm !  "  He  passed  his  finger  and  thumb  over 
his  chin,  as  a  man  often  does  when  he  is  thinking 
hard. 

"  Is  it  anything  serious,  doctor  ?  "  asked  ma,  in 
a  very  quavering  voice. 

"  It  may  pass  off  in  the  night — it  may  be  half 
a  dozen  things,"  he  said,  guardedly.  Then  he 
looked  at  ma,  and  said  abruptly :  "  Mrs.  Binks, 
where  do  you  get  your  milk  from  ?  " 

Ma  gave  a  sort  of  moan  and  flung  up  her  hands. 

"  I  knew  it — I  knew  it !  "  she  cried ;  then 
turned  and  ran  back  into  the  boudoir,  where  pa 
was  set  reading  the  evening  paper.  "  Binks — 
Binks !  "  she  cried,  "  didn't  I  say  I  had  my  doubts 
about  that  there  milk?  There's  the  doctor  ask- 
ing where  we  get  it." 

"  Is  Polly  very  ill  ?  "  pa  asked,  all  in  a  fright. 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  in 

"  No,  no ;  but  she  has  symptoms  that  may  de- 
velop into  something  by  morning,"  Dr.  Leynes 
answered  for  her.  "  We  doctors  are  very  in- 
quisitive fellows,  you  know,  Mr.  Binks,  and  we 
like  collateral  evidence  all  the  time  as  we  go 
along." 

"  Well,  doctor,"  said  pa,  "  I  need  'ardly  tell 
you  that  my  wife  and  me  haven't  built  up  a  big 
concern  like  Binks  and  Sons  without  knowing 
pretty  well  what  milk  is.  We  don't  happen  to 
serve  this  district,  and  perhaps  that  was  one  rea- 
son why  I  bought  this  'ouse,  thinking  my  girls 
would  have  a  better  chance  if  we  didn't.  I'll  open 
a  branch  in  Norwood  to-morrow." 

"  And  to-night  ?  "  ma  cried  quite  wildly.  "  Dr. 
Leynes  has  ordered  her  naught  but  milk,  Binks." 

"  I'll  go  up  to  South  Kensington  and  fetch  a 
canful ;  that'll  serve  the  night,"  said  pa.  "  And 
till  we  get  established,  they  must  send  over  night 
and  morning.  Don't  worry  about  that,  old  lady. 


ii2  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

I  only  'ope  Polly  ain't  going  to  suffer  for  my  bit 
of  paltry  pride." 

The  doctor  clapped  his  hand  down  on  pa's 
broad  shoulder. 

"  I  know  all  about  Binks  and  Sons,"  he  said, 
"  and  shall  be  glad  to  see  you  showing  this  neigh- 
borhood the  way  round.  As  for  pride,  I  wouldn't 
give  that  a  thought.  The  world  is  very  sensible 
nowadays,  and  people  mostly  take  the  positions 
they're  suited  to." 

"  If  only  my  girl  don't  suffer,"  said  poor  ma, 
with  trembling  lips. 

"  Well,  Mrs.  Binks,  if  it  does  turn  to  some- 
thing, we  must  do  the  best  we  can  for  her,"  he 
said,  kindly.  "  I  won't  conceal  from  you  that 
something  more  may  come.  A  girl  does  not  have 
a  temperature  of  a  hundred  and  four  for  nothing. 
But  I'll  come  first  thing  in  the  morning." 

Our  poor  Polly  did  suffer.  Ma  never  left  her 
that  night ,  not  for  a  minute.  She  had  one  of  the 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  113 

spare  beds  made  up  for  me,  and  she  insisted  on 
my  going  to  bed  while  she  kept  watch.  And  in 
the  morning  Polly  was  worse. 

Life  after  that  was  nothing  more  than  a  hide- 
ous dream  for  weeks  and  weeks.  The  house  was 
entirely  given  over  to  illness,  with  two  nurses  from 
a  great  nursing  home  in  town,  the  doctor  coming 
in  and  out  all  day  long,  the  door-knocker  tied 
up,  and  straw  laid  a  foot  deep  all  along  the 
road. 

We  found  out  who  were  our  friends  then.  At 
the  very  first  breath  of  what  it  was — diphtheria — 
Rosalind  came  flying  over  from  Astley  Crescent. 

"  Oh,  my  poor  dear  ma ! "  she  said,  catching 
hold  of  mother  and  holding  her  tight — "  my  poor 
dear  ma !  What  can  I  do  to  help  you  ?  " 

"  Oh,  my  dear,  you  shouldn't  have  come !  "  ma 
cried ;  "  Ted  shouldn't  have  let  you.  Go  home,  my 
dear  girl ;  go  home  and  pray  for  us — it's  all  you 
can  do." 


ii4  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

"  Nay,"  said  Rosalind,  stoutly,  "  I've  come  to 
stop,  ma.  Ted's  quite  willing  I  should.  There 
must  be  lots  to  do,  and  plenty  of  ways  in  which  I 
can  save  you.  Lor',  I'm  not  afraid !  I  never  catch 
anything." 

And  stay  she  did,  and  the  greatest  comfort  she 
was  to  poor  ma  and  all  of  us,  always  bright  and 
cheerful,  always  kind  and  tender  with  our  poor 
Polly,  who  went  very  nigh  indeed  to  the  gates  of 
heaven — so  close  that  several  times  we  fairly  held 
our  breath,  thinking  that  she  was  so  dazzled  by 
the  radiance  from  within  that  she  must  leave  go 
of  our  loving  hands  and  slip  past  the  golden  por- 
tals forever. 

Mrs.  Leynes  came  every  day,  always  alone,  for, 
as  she  said,  she  had  fears  for  her  only  girl,  though 
none  for  herself.  And  then  there  came  one  bright 
July  afternoon  when  the  doctor  was  in  and  out 
every  hour,  when  she  came  and  sat  on  the  sofa 
by  ma,  and  held  her  hand,  and  said  all  sorts  of 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  115 

tender,  motherly  things,  with  the  tears  streaming 
down  her  cheeks.  And  poor  ma  was  simply 
frozen,  and  couldn't  shed  a  single  tear. 

"  I  know  what  you  are  trying  to  tell  me,  Mrs. 
Leynes,"  she  said  at  last.  "  I  saw  what  the  doc- 
tor meant  this  morning.  He  told  you  to  try  to 
break  it  to  me.  He's  give  up  hope.  I  know  it." 

"  No,  Mrs.  Binks,"  said  she,  "  my  husband 
never  gives  up  hope  while  there  is  life.  Your 
poor  girl  is  very,  very  ill ;  there's  no  denying  it ; 
but  it  is  the  misery  in  your  face  that  breaks  me 
down  like  this,  not  anything  my  husband  has 
said." 

"  Dear,  kind  friend,"  said  ma,  putting  out  her 
hand,  but  otherwise  keeping  that  same  horrid 
calm,  "  pray  for  me ;  it's  all  you  can  do  now.  I've 
prayed  myself  till  I  seem  to  be  dazed,  and  the 
Lord  don't  seem  as  if  he  meant  to  listen." 

"  He  will — He  will,"  cried  Mrs.  Leynes,  hope* 
fully. 


n6  THE   SINKS   FAMILY. 

We  knew  that  the  next  few  hours  must  decide 
it  one  way  or  another.  What  a  day  it  was !  What 
an  evening !  What  a  night !  Dr.  Leynes  was  there 
most  of  the  time  after  midnight,  and  the  two 
nurses  never  stirred  out  of  the  room.  Rosalind 
never  left  them,  and  Ted  came  and  sat  with  pa, 
who  alternately  prayed  and  reproached  himself 
with  his  pride,  now  being  so  heavily  punished. 
Poor  pa !  If  ever  such  a  punishment  was  unde- 
served, it  was  in  his  case,  and  so  Ted  told  him 
over  and  over  again. 

"  Don't  take  on  like  that,  gov'nor,"  I  heard  him 
say  in  a  queer,  husky  voice.  "  It  was  an  acci- 
dent, pure  and  simple.  Even  if  you  were  dead 
sure  of  it's  having  come  from  the  milk " 

"  I  am  dead  sure,"  said  pa,  wretchedly.  "  And 
Leynes,  he's  dead  sure  too.  I've  gone  str'ight  on 
a  hard-and-fast  principle  all  my  business  life,  and 
then  go  and  break  it,  to  the  risk  of  my  own  flesh 
and  blood." 


THE  BINKS   FAMILY.  117 

"  She  might  have  got  it  any  time — at  the  sea- 
side, or  anywhere." 

"  She  might,  but  she  didn't,"  cried  pa,  savagely. 
"  She  got  it  through  her  father's  pride  and  folly ; 
and  if  she  goes — if  she  goes " 

"  She  isn't  going,"  said  Ted,  doggedly. 

And  Polly  didn't  go !  Toward  dawn  there  was 
just  a  slight  change  for  the  better,  and  then  Rosa- 
lind came  down  with  ma,  and  the  doctor  behind 
them.  He  never  said  a  word,  but  walked  up  to 
the  sideboard,  and  mixed  a  glass  of  stiff  brandy 
and  water. 

"  Drink  this,  Mrs.  Binks,"  he  said,  holding  it  to 
her  lips. 

"  Yes ;  drink  it,  ma,  dear,"  said  Rosalind. 

"  I  can't,"  said  poor  ma.  Her  face  was  quiver- 
ing and  her  lips  were  white  and  her  chin  trembled 
so  that  her  teeth  chattered  loudly. 

Pa  started  up  out  of  his  chair ;  he  thought  it 
was  all  over. 


n8  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

"  Come,  come,"  said  the  doctor,  with  cheery 
firmness,  "  you  musn't  give  way  now — or  rather, 
you  may  give  way  all  you  know.  If  you  can  have 
a  good  cry,  you'll  be  all  the  better  for  it." 

Ma  looked  up  piteously. 

"  Doctor,"  she  said  in  a  whisper,  "  I — I " 

"  Yes,  I  know.  We've  had  about  the  nearest 
squeak  for  it  that  I  have  ever  seen;  but  she's 
got  youth  and  strength  and  devoted  nurses  to 
pull  her  round.  There's  every  chance  now." 

"  Then  she's  not — not "  began  pa. 

"  Not  a  bit  of  it,"  the  doctor  returned.  "  A  dis- 
tinct turn  for  the  better,  and  she  is  sleeping  quite 
naturally  and  peacefully  for  the  first  time  since 
her  illness  began." 

"Thank  God!  My  God,  I  thank  Thee,"  pa 
cried. 

Then  he  made  a  step  toward  ma,  stopped,  and 
dropped  into  a  chair,  flinging  his  arms  out  on  to 
the  table,  and  hiding  his  face  upon  them. 


"  THE    DOCTOR    TUMBLED    US    ALL    OUT    OK    THE    ROOM    WITHOUT 
CEREMONY." — Page    IIQ 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  119 

Ted  got  up  and  put  his  arm  over  him. 

"  Don't  take  on  so,  gov'nor,"  he  said.  "  Think 
of  all  poor  mother's  gone  through." 

But  pa  sobbed  on,  and  ma  got  up  and  went  to 
him,  and  put  her  hand  into  his. 

"  Don't,  Binks,"  she  said. 

And  then,  somehow,  he  got  his  arm  round  her, 
and  she  began  to  cry  too,  with  her  head  upon  his 
shoulder.  The  doctor  tumbled  us  all  out  of  the 
room  without  ceremony. 

"  Now,  Mrs.  Edward,"  he  said,  as  he  closed  the 
door  behind  us,  "  get  this  damsel  off  to  bed,  and 
then  go  to  bed  yourself  with  a  clear  conscience. 
Your  wife's  a  brick,  sir,"  he  added,  holding  out 
his  hand  to  Ted.  "  Take  care  of  her,  for  you'll 
never  get  another  like  her." 

"  But "  began  Rosalind,  looking  toward  the 

dining-room  door. 

"  Leave  them  to  themselves,"  said  Dr.  Leynes. 
"  The  longer  they  sob  there  the  better  it  will  be 


120  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

for  both  of  them.  Upon  my  word,  I  don't  wonder 
they  are  both  broken  down.  It  was  a  near  shave, 
and  no  mistake  about  it." 

"  But  you've  had  nothing  yourself,  doctor," 
said  Ted. 

"  I'll  get  something  at  home,"  said  he. 

"  Let  me  get  you  a  cup  of  hot  soup,"  put  in 
Rosalind.  "  Cook's  sitting  up  in  case  anything 
might  be  wanted,  and  she  has  it  all  hot  and  ready 
for  use,  I  know." 

"  Then  take  me  to  the  kitchen  to  get  it,"  said 
he,  cheerfully.  "  I'm  never  above  a  cup  of  good, 
strong  soup  when  it's  going.  Which  is  the  way  ?  " 

He  was  a  wonderful  man,  that  doctor,  so  high 
and  mighty  one  couldn't  have  said  "  no  "  to  any- 
thing he  might  choose  to  say,  and  yet  with  it  such 
a  friendly,  half-ordering,  familiar  kind  of  way 
that  one  couldn't  feel  a  bit  offended.  He  went 
into  the  big,  clean  kitchen  that  evening  and  drank 
two  cups  of  cook's  strong  soup,  telling  her  it  had 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  121 

made  him  feel  a  man  again,  and  that  she  had  bet- 
ter take  a  cup  of  it  herself  and  then  go  off  to  bed, 
as  the  worst  was  all  over.  And  then  he  went  off 
home  by  the  side  entrance,  so  as  not  to  make  a 
noise ;  and  then  Rosalind  made  me  go  to  bed,  too, 
and  I  was  asleep  as  soon  as  my  head  had  touched 
the  pillow. 


122  THE    BINKS    FAMILY. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

THE   HIGHER   DEPORTMENT. 

"  No  one  takes  illness  so  badly  as  those  who  have 
never  known  a  day's  ill  health." 

THAT  illness  of  Polly's  made  a  new  creature 
of  pa.  He  never  was  quite  the  same  again.  You 
see,  in  all  his  life  before  he  had  never  had  to 
reckon  much  with  illness.  As  children  we  were 
all  strong  and  well,  ma  never  ailed  anything  be- 
yond a  bad  cold  now  and  again ;  and  pa  himself 
had  never  known  what  it  was  to  have  a  single 
day's  illness.  So  Polly's  fight  at  close  quarters 
with  death  seemed  to  open  out  an  entirely  new 
set  of  ideas  to  him.  He  grew  nervous  and  anx- 
ious about  us  all,  and  used  to  get  into  a  perfect 
fever  every  time  one  of  us  looked  a  little  pale  or 
had  even  a  slight  headache.  As  soon  as  Polly 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  123 

was  out  of  danger  he  had  all  the  drains  over- 
hauled, but  they  were  in  the  most  perfect  condi- 
tion ;  and  at  last,  after  infinite  pains,  the  cause  of 
Polly's  illness  was  traced  to  a  cow  suffering  from 
what  they  believed  to  have  been  diphtheria,  at  one 
of  the  farms  from  which  the  dairy,  which  served 
us,  drew  its  supply  of  milk.  As  soon  as  a  whis- 
per of  diphtheria,  and  milk  as  its  possible  cause, 
had  crept  out  into  the  neighborhood,  this  animal 
had  instantly  been  slaughtered  and  its  carcass  de- 
stroyed, so  that  positive  evidence  was  not  to  be 
had.  But  both  pa  and  Dr.  Leynes  were  satisfied 
that  milk  was  at  the  bottom  of  it,  and  a  splendid 
new  milk-shop  was  being  got  ready  in  the  best 
part  of  the  village,  with  the  name  "  Binks  and 
Sons  "  j>ainted  over  the  windows. 

"  My  pride  has  cost  me  dear,  doctor,"  said  pa, 
"  and  might  have  cost  me  dearer.    But  it's  killed 
for  all  time.    I  haven't  a  shadow  of  it  left." 
t     "  You  ought  to  be  proud  of  such  a  business  as 


124  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

yours,"  said  Dr.  Leynes.  "  I  know  I  should  be 
if  it  were  mine." 

"  I  am— I  am,"  cried  pa.  "  But  I  thought  if 
we  were  to  live  private,  we  might  as  well  go  out- 
side the  shadow  of  the  shop.  But  it's  cured  me, 
doctor ;  it's  cured  me." 

"  That's  right,"  said  the  doctor,  clapping  him 
on  the  back.  "  We  can't  all  of  us  be  too  thankful 
that  things  have  gone  as  they  have  and  not  as 
they  might  have  done.  For  my  own  part,  Mr. 
Binks,  I'd  rather  have  anything  on,  my  hands  than 
a  case  of  diphtheria.  We  don't  know  much  about 
it  yet,  we  doctors,  though,  mind  you,  the  day 
won't  be  far  distant  when  they'll  hold  it  in  the 
hollow  of  the  hand,  and  dread  it  no  more  than  the 
measles.  But  though  the  savants  are  on  the  track, 
they  haven't  got  there  yet. 

As  soon  as  she  was  fit  to  travel,  we  all  went 
down  to  Eastbourne  with  Polly.  We  took  one  of 
the  nurses  with  us,  and  we  had  a  spare  room,  so 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  125 

that  Ted  and  Rosalind  could  run  down  every 
week — which  they  did  every  Saturday  after- 
noon, staying  till  Monday  morning.  And  there 
by  the  sea  Polly  soon  picked  up  her  roses  again, 
and  got  strong  and  well  as  any  one,  even 
pa  and  ma,  could  wish.  It  was  the  beginning 
of  October  before  we  went  home  again,  and  I 
think  we  were  all  very  glad  to  be  together 
again,  for  pa  didn't  like  Eastbourne  any  better 
than  he  had  liked  Margate  years  before,  or 
any  of  the  other  seaside  places  where  we 
had  spent  our  summer  holidays  in  the  years 
between. 

The  very  first  day  after  we  got  back  pa 
got  ma  to  go  to  town  with  him  to  buy  some- 
thing— he  wouldn't  say  what.  Then,  two 
or  three  days  afterwards,  their  purchases 
came  home — a  big  silver  tankard  for  Dr. 
Leynes  and  a  diamond  ring  for  Rosa- 
lind. 


126  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

On  the  tankard  was  engraved  as  follows : 

TO 

FREDERICK  LEYNES,  ESQUIRE, 
A  TOKEN  OF  DEEP  GRATITUDE 

FROM 

JOSEPH  BINKS. 

"  There,  now,  do  you  think  the  doctor'll  be 
pleased  with  that  ?  "  pa  asked  triumphantly,  as  he 
opened  the  velvet-covered,  satin-lined  case  in 
which  it  had  come. 

"  Oh,  yes !  "  cried  Polly.  "  How  nice  of  you, 
pa,  dear !  I'm  sure  he'll  like  it  awfully." 

"And  this  is  for  Rosalind,"  said  pa,  handing 
her  a  small  case  as  he  spoke. 

"  It's  a  sweet  ring,"  said  Polly,  taking  it  out 
and  trying  it  on  her  own  finger. 

The  diamonds  flashed  and  glittered  in  the  light 
from  the  electric  lamp  over  the  dinner-table,  and 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  127 

Polly  held  her  hand  so  as  to  catch  all  the  rays  as 
they  sparkled  out.    Inside  the  band  was  written : 

"I.  M.  Polly,  July  15,  18— ." 

"  What  are  you  going  to  give  me,  pa,  dear,  for 
getting  better  ?  "  said  Polly,  as  she  put  the  ring 
back  in  its  case. 

"  I'm  going  to  give  your  mother  the  profits  in 
the  new  branch,"  said  pa,  "  to  put  by  to  spend  on 
you  two  girls." 

I  drew  my  breath.  I  knew  what  the  profits  in 
such  a  business  as  was  already  flourishing  in 
the  village  would  mean.  Polly  sat  herself  down 
on  the  arm  of  pa's  chair,  and  twined  her  arm 
round  his  neck. 

"  It's  very  good  of  you,  pa,  dear,"  she  said, 
"  and  Anna  Maria  and  me'll  always  try  to  be 
good  girls,  and  pay  you  back  in  love,  if  nothing 
else,  for  all  you  do  for  us.  But  I'd  like  a  little 
present  bought  special,  dear,  by  yourself,  just  to 


128  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

show  that  you  were  glad  to  keep  me  when  I  went 
so  near  going  away  from  you  all." 

"  Oh,  my  girl !  "  cried  pa ;  "  oh,  my  girl !  " 

Somehow,  I  think  that  illness  of  Polly's  set  pa 
against  Norwood,  for  he  never  seemed  to  settle 
there.  At  Rosedale  he  was  always  restless  and 
uneasy,  always  sniffing  about  the  drains,  and 
worrying  round,  comparing  it  unfavorably  with 
the  house  where  we  had  lived  so  long  in  Astley 
Crescent. 

"  I'm  sure  the  only  way  to  ensure  a  perfect 
'ouse,"  he  declared  one  day,  when  he  fancied 
Polly  was  looking  a  bit  off  color,  "  is  to  build." 

"  They  say  that  fools  build  houses  for  wise 
men  to  live  in,"  said  ma,  quietly. 

"  Yes ;  I  know  they  do,"  pa  retorted.  "  All  the 
same,  I  'ave  it  on  my  mind  to  try  the  experiment 
for  myself." 

"  Now,  we  liked  Rosedale,  even  ma.  We  were 
somebody  in  our  set.  We  knew  lots  of  nice  peo- 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  129 

pie,  and  went  to  lots  of  parties,  and  we  gave  our 
share,  both  summer  and  winter.  Of  course,  I 
wasn't  actually  '  out '  as  yet ;  in  fact,  by  Mrs. 
Leynes's  advice,  I  attended  classes  in  the  mornings 
at  a  very  high-class  school,  where  only  the  best 
professors  attended.  Ma  had  to  pay  a  pretty 
penny,  I  can  tell  you,  and  Mrs.  Vaughan  made 
quite  a  favor  of  what  she  called  "  making  room 
for  me."  But  what  a  lot  I  did  learn  there,  to  be 
sure. 

Not  so  much  out  of  books,  you  know,  for,  of 
course,  ma  didn't  care  so  much  about  that;  but 
we  had  to  talk  French  all  the  time,  and  we  had 
a  deportment  lesson  every  day.  I  was  put  in  the 
very  advanced  class  for  deportment,  and  we  went 
through  a  regular  course  every  day  from  twelve 
to  one  o'clock.  We  had  to  learn  exactly  how  to 
shake  hands,  how  to  bow  in  the  street,  how  to 
enter  a  room,  how  to  knock  at  a  door;  for,  as 
Mrs.  Vaughan  said,  if  a  lady  has  no  footman,  or, 


i3o  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

if  she  has,  is  out  without  him,  she  should  be  able 
to  knock  at  a  door  like  a  lady,  and  not  like  a  little 
dressmaker  taking  home  a  frock. 

So  we  all  practiced  in  turns  on  a  large  brass 
knocker  fixed  outside  the  large  door  of  the  room 
at  the  top  of  the  house,  where  we  did  calisthenics 
and  dancing.  Then  Mrs.  Vaughan  would  play 
the  maid-servant,  and  we  would  all  knock  in  turn 
and  inquire  if  Mrs.  Vaughan  was  at  home.  At 
first  we  used  all  of  us  to  find  it  an  awfully  diffi- 
cult task ;  but,  after  awhile,  under  Mrs.  Vaugh- 
an's  eagle  eye,  we  learned  to  be  able  to  knock  a 
regular  rat-tat-tat  with  a  trill  of  little  tats,  and 
one  big  one  to  wind  up  with,  as  well  as  any  foot- 
man in  London. 

Then  we  had  to  greet  the  hostess,  to  receive 
guests,  to  give  tea,  to  say  good-bye,  and  to  leave 
the  room.  That  done,  we  had  to  learn  to  enter 
and  get  out  of  a  carriage,  to  bow  to  Royalty,  and 
to  go  through  all  the  ceremony  of  a  drawing- 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  131 

room,  each  of  us  with  a  court  train  made  of  calico 
pinned  over  her  everyday  dress. 

Polly  was  so  charmed  with  my  description  of 
the  deportment  lesson  that  she  made  ma  go  and 
see  Mrs.  Vaughan  and  get  her  to  let  her  join  the 
class.  Mrs.  Vaughan  rather  demurred,  but  event- 
ually, as  I  was  a  regular  pupil,  she  gave  way,  and 
Polly  came  every  day  at  twelve  o'clock  and 
learned  to  bow  and  set  down,  to  knock  and  shake 
hands,  and  all  the  rest  of  it. 

"  And,  by  the  way,  my  dear  girl,"  said  Mrs. 
Vaughan  one  morning  to  me,  "  what  did  I  hear 
you  say  you  were  going  to  do  ?  " 

"  To  set  down,  Mrs.  Vaughan,"  I  replied. 

"  To  set  down  what?  "  she  asked  in  an  awful 
voice. 

"  Myself — on  a  chair,''  I  said  promtly. 

"  You  set  something  down  on  a  table,"  said  she, 
in  cold,  clear  accents,  at  which  I  could  see  several 
of  the  girls  sniggering,  "  but  when  you  wish  to 


i3*  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

rest  yourself  you  sit  down — S-I-T,  sit.  Now,  do 
you  understand  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  I  said  so,"  I  said  very  quietly.  "  I 
said  I  was  going  to  set  down." 

"Sit  down— S-I-T!"  she  exclaimed.  "Sit— 
sit — sit." 

"  Set,"  I  said ;  and  really  it  was  too  silly  to  see 
that  silly  old  woman  working  herself  up  into  a  reg- 
ular rage  about  what  I  said  just  as  well  as  she  did. 

"  No ;  not  set,  but  sit! "  she  repeated  very  dis- 
tinctly. "  Say  after  me,  '  hit— lit— knit.'  " 

"  '  Hit— lit— knit,'  "  I  said. 

"There.     Now  say  '  pet— wet— bet.'  " 

"'Pet— wet— bet/  "  I  repeated. 

"  Now  say,  '  I  am  going  to  sit  down.' " 

"  'I  am  going  to  set  down,' "  I  said. 

I  really  did  think  she  was  going  to  have  a  fit 
over  it. 

"  My  dear  girl,  you  can  have  no  ear.  Say  after 
me  again,  '  I  will  go—'  " 


THE    BINKS    FAMILY.  133 

"  '  I  will  go '  " 

"  '  And '  " 

"  <  And '  " 


;<  'Sit  down.'  "• 

"  '  Sit  down/  "  I  repeated. 

"  That's  right.  Now,  remember,  you  must 
watch  yourself  continually,  because  you  have 
picked  up  this  little  cockneyism  probably  from 
your  nurse,  and  you  have  got  to  break  yourself  of 
it.  It  is  not  something  that  does  not  matter,  my 
dear  girl,  but  will  be  a  very  serious  drawback  to 
you  if  you  do  not  conquer  it.  It  is  quite  useless, 
perfectly  useless,  studying  the  higher  deportment 
while  you  allow  yourself  to  say  '  set '  down  and  I 
'  sawr '  it." 

"  I  don't  want  to  say  anything  wrong,  Mrs. 
Vaughan,"  I  said  quietly,  yet  with  firmness.  "  I 
arn  most  anxious  to  do  everything  just  right.  My 
pa " 


i34  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

She  put  up  her  hand  to  stop  me,  and  waved  to 
the  rest  of  the  class. 

"  Young  ladies,  the  clock  has  already  struck 
the  hour ;  you  may  go.  Now,  my  dear  girl,"  she 
added  very  kindly,  as  the  girls  all  trooped  out, 
leaving  only  me  and  Polly  in  the  big  room,  "  finish 
what  you  were  going  to  say." 

"  My  pa "  I  began. 

"  Your  what?  "  she  said  sharply. 

"  My  pa,"  I  repeated. 

"  My  dear  girl,"  she  said,  setting  down  on  the 
throne-like  chair  wherein  she  illustrated  some  of 
our  lessons,  "  no  lady  speaks  of  her  pa  and  ma. 
You  can  say  '  papa  '  and  *  mamma,'  but  '  father ' 
and  *  mother '  is  the  most  correct " — and  she  said 
it  with  such  an  air,  "  cor-rect " — "  and  the  most 
distinguished  in  every  way." 

"  Well,  I  never !  "  Polly  flashed  out. 

Mrs.  Vaughan  turned  a  pair  of  astonished  eyes 
full  upon  her. 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  135 

"  What  did  you  say,  Miss  Binks  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  Mrs.  Vaughan,"  said 
Polly,  with  a  blush.  "  But  the  truth  was  I  was  so 
surprised  that  it  slipped  out." 

"  With  young  ladies  things  should  never  slip 
out"  said  Mrs.  Vaughan. 

"  But  we  have  said  '  father '  and  '  mother '  all 
our  lives  till  quite  lately,"  Polly  explained.  "  It 
was  only  after  our  Ted — my  brother,  I  mean — 
got  married  that  we  took  to  saying  '  pa '  and 
*  ma/  because  we  admired  our  sister-in-law  so 
much.  Is  it  really  more  stylish  to  say  '  father ' 
and  'mother/  Mrs.  Vaughan?  I  noticed  that 
Myra  Leynes  does." 

"  It  is  more  comme  il  faut,  certainly,"  said  Mrs. 
Vaughan.  "  In  fact,  *  pa '  and  '  ma '  are  simply 
impossible — IMPOSSIBLE." 

"  I'm  afraid,"  said  Polly,  in  rather  a  crestfallen 
tone,  "  that  Anna  Maria  and  me  have  got  a  great 
deal  to  learn." 


136  THE   CINKS   FAMILY. 


CHAPTER   X. 

THE  SHADOW  OF  A  CHANGE. 

"  Better  the  devil  you  do  know,  than  the  devil  you 
don't." 

WHEN  Polly  and  me  went  back  home  after  that 
lesson  in  the  higher  deportment,  Polly  out  with 
everything  to  mother. 

"  Oh,  why  didn't  you  send  us  to  boarding- 
school  in  Paris  or  somewhere  so  that  we  could 
learn  all  these  things  ?  " 

"  Well,  my  dear,"  said  mother,  in  her  everyday, 
sensible  voice,  "  I  never  thought  of  it.  You  were 
girls  that  had  always  been  with  your  mother,  and 
always  hankered  after  her,  and  though  you  were 
strong  and  well,  you  were,  every  one  of  you, 
faddy  about  your  food,  and  boarding-school  food 
— at  least,  so  I  have  always  heard — is  what  your 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  137 

stomachs  would  have  turned  against.  Besides, 
your  father  would  have  missed  you  sadly.  I  had 
to  think  of  that,  especially  with  such  a  man  for 
his  home  and  his  family  as  he  is." 

"  Yes,  I  know,"  said  Polly,  rather  in  a  vexed 
sort  of  tone ;  "  but  father  would  have  let  us  go 
for  our  good,  and  there's  so  many  things  we 
should  have  picked  up  that  now  we've  got  older, 
we  find  difficult  to  keep  ourselves  in  mind  of." 

"  Well,  my  dear,"  said  mother,  "  it's  too  late  to 
think  of  that  now.  I  never  liked  your  calling  us 
pa  and  ma.  To  me  it  sounds  fine  and  horrid.  And 
you  both  seemed  to  find  it  easy  enough — easier 
than  you  do  now  to  go  back  to  '  father '  and 
'  mother.' " 

"  Ah,  that  was  only  because  we  were  so  taken 
up  with  Rosalind.  She  has  such  a  way  with  her, 
and  it  sounded  stylish  to  us." 

"  I'd  rather  myself  that  you'd  be  good  and 
natural  than  what  you  call  stylish,"  said  mother. 


i38  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

"  It  makes  me  very  sad  to  see  you  both  thinking 
so  much  of  mere  outside  things." 

"  But  you  like  us  to  improve  ourselves,"  said 
Polly. 

"  By  all  means.  But  will  trying  to  be  fine  da 
it  ?  "  asked  mother.  "  No,  my  dear,  never,  never. 
It's  the  heart  that  makes  the  difference.  Look  at 
your  father — a  plain  business  man,  honest  and 
true,  with  his  heart  big  enough  for  half  a  dozen 
men.  Those  that  know  him  like  him,  and  respect 
him,  for  what  he  is,  not  because  he  lives  at  Rose- 
dale  or  because  he  is  worth  so  much  money.  For 
my  part,"  she  went  on,  shaking  her  head,  "  I  shall 
never  be  anything  but  what  I  am,  a  simple  wom- 
an, who  have  honestly  tried  to  do  my  duty  in  that 
sphere  of  life  in  which  it  has  pleased  God  to  place 
me.  All  these  society  fid-fads  addle  me.  I  get 
that  bothered  as  to  whether  I  ought  to  set  down 
or  stand  up,  that  half  my  time  I  scarce  know  what 
I'm  doing." 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  139 

"  But  you're  a  lady,  mother,"  cried  I. 

"  Am  I  ?  "  Well,  dear,  I  hope  you'll  always 
think  so,"  she  said,  smiling  sweetly  at  me.  "  For 
myself,  I  have  my  doubts  about  it." 

"  You're  a  saint  anyway,"  Polly  exclaimed. 

Mother  smiled  again. 

"  Nay,  my  love,  not  yet,"  she  said  gently. 

I've  often  thought  about  it  since. 

Well,  Polly  and  I— oh,  how  difficult  I  did  find 
it  not  to  say  "  Polly  and  me,"  as  I'd  always  done ! 
— Polly  and  I  decided  that  as  Mrs.  Vaughan  and 
"  Hints  "  tallied  on  most  points,  that  we  would 
work  hard  at  the  higher  deportment  and  lay  to 
heart  every  single  thing  that  she  taught  us.  By 
her  own  wish  Polly  went  back  to  school  again, 
not  quite  as  I  did,  but  for  several  special  subjects 
in  which  she  felt  herself  not  quite  up  to  the  mark. 
We  were  very  busy  then.  What  with  all  we  had 
to  learn,  with  managing  our  dress-allowances, 
and  keeping  our  various  engagements,  we 


i4o  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

scarcely  knew  what  it  was  to  have  a  minute  to 
spare.  We  started  a  day  of  our  own  for  our  girl- 
friends in  our  own  sitting-room,  which  we  called 
"  the  Lounge,"  and  there  we  used  to  have  half  a 
dozen  or  a  dozen  girls  on  a  Monday  afternoon, 
all  as  gay  as  a  flight  of  birds.  We  had  everything 
of  our  very  own  that  we  had  either  bought  for 
ourselves  out  of  our  allowances  or  that  father  or 
mother  or  the  boys  had  given  us.  And  we  used 
to  have  the  best  cream  from  the  branch,  and  nice 
cakes  and  sweets,  and,  what  with  the  piano  and 
other  things,  our  afternoons  were  a  great  success. 
Once  indeed  Mrs.  Vaughan  herself  came,  and  she 
told  us  that  we  made  very  good  hostesses,  and 
that  she  had  never  seen  two  girls  so  resolutely  set 
themselves  to  improve  as  we  had  done. 

About  this  time  Rosalind  had  a  baby,  and  Polly 
and  I  were  left  alone  at  Rosedale  with  father,  as 
mother  went  off  to  Astley  Crescent,  and  stayed 
all  the  time,  that  she  might  see  her  through  it. 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  141 

Rosalind  was  rather  compunctious  about  taking 
mother  away  from  home  for  so  long,  but  mother 
was  firm. 

"  No,  my  dear  girl,  it's  but  a  small  return  to 
make  you  for  that  cruel  time  when  you  came  to 
me  at  the  risk  of  your  dear  life,  and  me  or  mine 
would  let  our  tongues  shrivel  in  our  mouths  be- 
fore ever  we  would  utter  a  word  of  complaint,  no 
matter  how  inconvenient  it  was.  But,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  it  ain't  inconvenient  at  all,  for  the  girls 
can  do  all  at  home  quite  well,  and  father'll  see 
me  as  often  as  ever  he  wants  when  he's  up  in 
town." 

"  Well,  dear  ma,"  said  Rosalind,  "  I  won't  hum- 
bug by  pretending  I  shan't  like  to  have  you  with 
me.  I've  no  ma  of  my  own,  you  know." 

"  My  dear  girl,"  cried  mother,  "  but  you're  as 
much  to  me  as  if  you  was  twenty  times  my  own 
born  and  bred." 

All  the  same,  father  didn't  like  having  mother 


i4*  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

away.  He  didn't  grumble — he  never  said  a  word, 
poor  dear — but  he  did  worse,  for  he  moped.  And 
it  is  perfectly  awful  to  see  a  man  mope,  isn't  it? 
It  must  have  been  that  that  made  him  so  restless, 
for  he  got  fancying  things  about  Rosedale  again, 
sniffing  here  and  there,  and  fidgeting  about  all 
sorts  of  things  in  the  house. 

At  last  one  day  he  came  home  to  dinner  evi- 
dently with  something  on  his  mind. 

"  Girls,"  said  pa,  as  we  sat  down  to  the  table 
and  Elizabeth  was  serving  the  soup,  for  she  had 
started  us  on  to  having  everything  carried  off  and 
having  the  housemaid  in  to  help  wait,  "  I've 
done  it." 

"  Not  sold  Rosedale !  "  Polly  cried. 

"  No,  oh,  no ;  but  I've  bought  a  big  place  in  the 
country  " — rubbing  his  hands. 

"Whatever  for?"  Polly  asked  blankly. 

"  To  run  a  model  dairy-farm,  and  to  build  a 
real  model  house  to  live  in,"  replied  pa. 


THE   SINKS    FAMILY.  143 

"  Oh,  how  horrid !  "  cried  Polly. 

"  Well,  it'll  take  over  a  year  to  build,"  said  he, 
"  and  at  least  a  year  to  get  thoroughly  dry,  so  you 
won't  have  to  tear  yourself  away  from  Rosedale 
just  yet." 

"  Mother  won't  like  it,"  Polly  said  stoutly. 

"  We  shall  see,"  he  replied,  nodding  his  head 
wisely. 

I  never  knew  Polly  so  vexed  in  all  my  life. 

"  I  can't  think  what's  come  to  him,"  she  said, 
when  we  had  got  safely  into  our  own  bedroom. 
"  I  suppose  it's  all  that  wretched  illness  of  mine 
last  year.  As  if  any  one  could  have  any  doubt 
but  what  it  was  just  an  accident.  Norwood's  good 
enough  for  me,  I'm  sure,  and  I  shall  be  vexed  if 
father  goes  and  routs  us  out  just  as  we've  got 
settled  and  happy.  Mother's  settled  to  her  new 
life  and  contented  to  be  out  of  business. 

"  We  aren't  gone  yet,"  I  said.  "  A  big  house 
like  father  is  thinking  of  building  will  take  a  long 


144  THE    BINKS    FAMILY. 

time  to  build,  and  a  longer  time  to  get  dry  and  fit 
to  live  in.  We  haven't  left  Rosedale  yet,  Polly." 

"  No ;  I  hope  we  shan't,"  she  rejoined,  quite 
sharply. 

She  was  so  sweet-tempered,  was  Polly,  that  I 
guessed  she  must  have  something  very  particular 
to  make  her  so  anxious  to  stay  at  Rosedale  and 
to  show  so  much  warmth  about  it. 

"  It'll  be  real  jolly  living  in  a  big  country 
place,"  I  ventured. 

"  That's  as  maybe,"  said  she,  quite  snappily. 
"  I  don't  see  the  force  of  going  to  be  snubbed 
in  the  country  by  a  lot  of  people  we  could  buy  up 
over  and  over  again.  Here  we  do  know  where 
we  are;  here  we  have  lots  of  nice  friends  that 
are  all  just  the  same  sort  of  people  as  ourselves ; 
here  we  don't  get  sniffed  at  because  our  mother 
doesn't  give  herself  ridiculous  airs  and  wears  her 
hair  in  plain  bands,  or  because  our  father  smokes 
a  churchwarden  and  isn't  ashamed  of  it.  I  tell 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  145 

you,  Anna,  my  dear,  if  father  takes  us  away  from 
Rosedale,  where  we're  well  known  and  respected 
for  being  exactly  what  we  are,  he'll  make  the  very 
biggest  social  mistake  he  has  ever  made  in  all  his 
life. 

"  We're  not  gone  yet,"  I  said ;  for  I  saw  Polly 
really  was  vexed,  and  I  didn't  want  to  add  to  her 
annoyance.  Poor  Polly ! 

It  wasn't  so  very  long  after  that  that  I  found 
out  why  she  was  so  keen  on  staying  at  Rosedale. 
You  see,  Ted  and  Rosalind  had  a  fine  boy  born 
to  them  when  the  time  came,  and  nothing  would 
satisfy  father  but  that  the  christening  must  be 
at  the  church  in  the  Bathurst  Road,  and  that  Mr. 
Wingfield  must  perform  the  ceremony.  That 
meant,  of  course,  giving  a  great  christening  party 
after,  and  Polly  very  soon  persuaded  mother  to 
let  us  have  a  dance  in  the  evening  by  way  of 
winding  up  the  day. 

Of  course,  Ted  and  Rosalind  came  to  stay  for 


1 46  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

it,  and  the  other  two  boys  both  came  home — 
Georgie  from  Hampstead,  where  he  was  in  charge 
of  a  big  branch,  and  Dicky  from  Putney,  where  he 
had  just  been  put  over  another.  They  were  both 
engaged,  these  boys,  Georgie  going  to  be  married 
very  soon,  though  father  had  laid  it  down  very 
straight  indeed  that  Dick  should  wait  till  he  was 
turned  twenty-one  before  he  took  the  final  step. 

Georgie  was  very  ambitious,  like  father;  he 
had  looked  out  for  money.  He  hadn't  been  lucky, 
like  Ted,  but  Miss  Haman  was  well  off,  and  she 
was  a  lady.  Her  father  had  been  something  in 
the  city,  and  she,  Gertrude,  had  never  been  mixed 
up  with  trade  in  any  way  before,  and  she  took 
care  to  let  every  one  know  it.  She  was  years 
older  than  Georgie,  and  no  beauty  at  that ;  but, 
as  mother  said,  if  Georgie  was  satisfied,  it  was  no 
good  for  us  to  upset  ourselves  one  way  or  an- 
other. 

Dicky  might  have  looked  higher.     His  young 


THE   BTNKS    FAMILY.  147 

woman  was  a  soft-eyed,  flower-faced  little  crea- 
ture that  frankly  sat  at  his  feet  and  worshiped 
him.  It  wasn't  good  for  Dicky,  and  he  bullied  her 
shamefully  all  the  time.  However,  she  seemed 
so  completely  gone  on  him  that  she  even  liked 
that,  which,  of  course,  encouraged  him  to  keep  on 
at  it  in  a  way  that  made  my  very  blood  boil.  I 
dare  say  when  you've  never  known  what  it  is  to 
have  a  penny  you  haven't  worked  hard  for,  when 
you've  always  lived  in  a  poky  little  house,  and 
all  your  wildest  dreams  of  gentility  have  meant 
twenty  pounds  a  year  got  by  teaching  little  brats 
to  read  and  write,  it  does  seem  like  heaven  when 
a  handsome  man  comes  along  and  puts  a  diamond 
ring  on  your  finger,  and  gives  you  flowers  and 
pretty  things  to  wear,  and  offers  you  a  good,  solid, 
substantial  home,  where  you'll  never  know  the 
want  of  a  sovereign  again  as  long  as  you  live.  All 
the  same,  I  don't  think  if  I  was  to  marry  a  royal 
duke  I  should  ever  lie  down  and  beg  him  to  kick 


i48  THE   SINKS   FAMILY. 

me  as  Florence  Massan  did  every  day  of  her  life 
to  my  brother  Dicky. 

But  it  wasn't  through  them  that  I  found  out 
anything  about  Polly.  Oh,  no !  It  was  like  this. 
Rosalind,  being  still  rather  frail,  was  forbidden 
to  dance  that  night,  so  she  sat  out,  and  her  bright 
eyes  saw  a  good  deal  more  than  they  would  have 
done  if  she'd  been  more  occupied  with  partners 
herself. 

"  Anna,"  she  said  to  me — oh,  yes,  we  had  long 
since  dropped  my  second  name,  and  I  was  always 
called  Anna  now — "  Anna,"  she  said,  "  who  is 
Polly  dancing  with  ?  " 

I  looked  across  the  room  to  where  Polly,  in  a 
pretty  pink  frock,  had  just  stopped  to  take  breath. 

"Oh,  that's  Mr.  Beddingham,"  I  said. 

"Who  is  he?" 

"  He's  on  the  Stock  Exchange — we've  known 
him  a  long  time.  His  people  live  here,  but  he 
lives  in  town  somewhere." 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  149 

"You'll  know  him  better  after  a  time,"  said 
Rosalind,  dryly. 

"  What  do  you  mean,  Rosalind  ?  "  I  asked,  a 
sharp  fear  knocking  at  my  heart. 

"Mean!  What,  isn't  it  plain  enough?"  she 
said,  sjniling. 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY, 


CHAPTER   XI. 

THE  WEDDING. 

"  Marriage  is  very  much  the  same  as  death,  an  opening 
of  a  door  into  another  world." 

I  MUST  say  at  once  that  the  affair  between  Polly 
and  Mr.  Beddingham  did  not  flourish  over  well. 
It  was  so  strange  that  we  had  all  our  lives  been 
everything  to  each  other  and  yet  now  not  one 
single  word  concerning  Mr.  Beddingham  did  she 
let  drop,  and,  so  far  as  that  went,  we  might  have 
been  utter  strangers  to  one  another.  I  believe,  if 
Rosalind  had  not  put  me  up  to  it,  that  I  should 
never  have  seen  that  there  was  anything  between 
them ;  for  Polly  kept  so  carefully  away  from  his 
name  in  her  conversation  as  if  he  had  been  the 
plague.  It  was  only  by  a  few  little  signs — 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  151 

blushes,  a  shyness  of  manner,  an  extra  careful- 
ness of  toilet  when  we  knew  he  was  coming,  and 
such-like  things — that  I  saw  that  she  looked  upon 
him  any  differently  to  all  the  other  young  men 
that  came  and  went  at  Rosedale. 

Just  about  this  time  Myra  L?ynes  was  married. 
She  made  a  very  good  match,  marrying  a  young 
doctor  who  had  been  her  father's  pupil  years  be- 
fore, and  who  had  set  up  as  a  specialist  in  Harley 
Street,  and  had  made  a  tremendous  start  even 
there.  He  was  young,  not  more  than  thirty,  tall 
and  very  good-looking,  and  passionately  in  love 
with  Myra.  I  didn't  wonder  that  he  was,  for 
Myra  was  very  pretty,  so  tall  and  slight,  and  so 
stylish  in  every  way,  with  a  way  of  fearing  her 
clothes,  and  such  pretty,  pretty  manners. 

Father  and  mother  gave  her  a  lovely  after- 
noon-tea and  coffee  service  in  silver,  with  a  little 
tray  to  match,  as  father  told  her  that  she  might 
keep  us  in  mind  every  day  of  her  life.  I  shall 


152  THE    BINKS    FAMILY. 

never  forget  the  way  she  put  up  her  sweet  face 
and  kissed  him  as  he  wound  up : 

"  I  owe  your  father  such  a  debt,  my  dear — not 
one  that  can  be  paid  by  a  few  bits  of  silver." 

"  She's  a  fine  girl,  that,"  he  said  to  mother,  as 
we  walked  home,  when  the  bride  had  gone  away 
and  the  wedding  was  all  over.  "  No  nonsense 
about  her." 

"  A  dear  girl,"  said  mother. 

And  that  was  the  end  of  Myra.  After  that  she 
went  out  of  our  life  as  completely  as  if  she  had 
married  a  Chinaman.  When  we  did  meet  she 
was  always  the  same,  and  when  we  went  to  see 
her  in  Harley  Street  she  showed  us  all  over  her 
house,  and  was  just  the  same  sweet  and  pleasant 
girl  that  she  had  always  been.  But  somehow 
our  way  never  was  her  way  after  her  marriage. 

We  had  then  been  over  two  years  at  Rosedale, 
and  father  was  up  to  his  eyes  in  plans  about  the 
new  house  he  was  building  after  his  own  idea 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  153 

down  on  the  estate  he  had  bought,  and  which  had 
now  been  converted  into  a  gigantic  milk-farm,  ar- 
ranged and  conducted  on  the  very  newest  and 
most  scientific  system.  The  new  house  was  not, 
however,  very  forward,  and  had  got  but  a  little 
way  beyond  the  foundations ;  but,  as  mother  said, 
it  was  good  for  him  to  have  some  other  occupa- 
tion than  building  up  fresh  businesses,  and  it 
would  be  several  years,  at  the  present  rate  of 
progress,  before  it  would  be  ready  for  us  to  go 
into.  So  we  had  all  quite  got  to  look  upon  Rose- 
dale  as  our  permanent  home,  and  upon  Dove 
Hall  as  something  as  far  off  as  the  kingdom  of 
heaven — a  place  to  which  we  might  go  some  day, 
a  some  day  very  desirable  in  itself,  but  not  to  be 
hastened  by  any  conscious  act  of  our  own. 

When  I  was  turned  eighteen,  we  gave  a  ball 
for  my  coming  out.  It  was  a  smart  affair,  I  can 
tell  you,  with  gold  cords  and  tassels  to  the  pro- 
grammes, menus  for  the  sit-down  supper,  a  band, 


iS4  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

and  a  great  marquee  with  a  spring  floor  erected 
over  the  lawn,  and  leading  out  of  the  long  French 
doors  between  the  drawing-room  and  the  con- 
servatory. Then,  you  see,  you  passed  through  the 
conservatory  straight  into  the  ball-room,  and  so 
had  plenty  of  space,  and  no  rush  of  cold  air  any- 
where. The  ball  was  a  great  success,  because 
we  had  more  men  than  girls,  so  that  all  the  girls 
had  partners,  and  to  spare.  I  never  felt  more 
glad  to  have  known  Mrs.  Vaughan  that  I  was 
that  night,  for  all  the  higher  deportment  that  I 
had  studied  with  her  did  come  in  so  useful,  and 
I  scarcely  forgot  anything  that  she  had  told  me. 
And  that  evening  Mr.  Beddingham  proposed 
to  our  Polly.  I  never  suspected  it;  in  fact,  the 
affair  had  been  so  long  about  that  I  had  begun  to 
think  of  it  very  much  as  I  thought  of  Dove  Hall. 
So  when  Polly  came  shyly  up  to  me  and  said: 
"  Anna,  darling,  I  know  you'll  be  more  glad  than 
any  one  that  I've  been  made  happy  at  your  birth- 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  155 

day-ball,"  I  was  so  taken  aback  that  I  almost 
fainted  as  I  stood. 

"You'll  wish  me  joy,  Miss  Anna?"  said  he, 
with  his  grand  air. 

"  Oh,  yes,  both  of  you,  of  course,"  I  said  at 
once.  Then  I  caught  hold  of  Polly  and  kissed 
her.  "  But  your  happiness,  Mr.  Beddingham, 
will  be  a  dreadful  loss  to  me,  to  all  of  us." 

"  No  loss  at  all,  but  a  gain — one  brother  the 
more,"  he  said  promptly ;  and  really  be  was  such 
a  grand  young  man,  and  said  "  broth-aw "  in 
such  a  tone  that  I  almost  wondered  how  Polly 
had  had  the  cheek  to  fall  in  love  with  him. 

The  next  day  Mr.  Beddingham  came  quite 
early  to  see  father,  and  between  them  they  set- 
tled all  the  money  side  of  the  question.  Father 
was  delighted  with  the  engagement. 

"  What  more  could  any  girl  want  ? "  he  re- 
marked. "  A  fine,  up-standing  feller  like  Bed- 
dingham, six  feet  two  in  his  stocking-feet,  and 


156  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

able  to  make  a  good  settlement,  that,  with  what 
I  shall  give  her,  will  put  her  above  poverty  for 
all  the  rest  of  her  life." 

But  to  me  all  the  rejoicings  were  sad  enough. 
I  was  going  to  lose  my  sister,  my  other  half.  I 
should  have  to  sleep  in  a  room  to  myself,  me  that 
had  shared  a  room  with  Polly,  and  often  enough 
a  bed,  for  sheer  love  of  company,  ever  since  I 
could  remember  anything.  I  should  have  the 
lounge  to  myself,  too.  Oh,  the  very  idea  made 
me  fairly  shiver,  and  so  did  the  thought  of  the 
first  and  third  Monday  afternoons,  when  all  our 
girl  friends,  and  some  of  their  brothers,  too,  came 
to  see  us!  Of  course,  I  knew  they  would  never 
come  the  same  when  Polly  was  gone. 

But  she  was  so  happy!  I  don't  think  I  had 
even  seen  a  girl  so  utterly  happy  as  she  was.  One 
couldn't  grudge  her  to  her  young  man,  however 
much  of  a  loss  it  might  be  to  us.  And  everything 
was  rushed  on  at  such  a  rate  that  We  hadn't  much 


THE   SINKS    FAMILY.  157 

time  for  thinking  about  things.  You  see,  they 
had  been  a  long  time  bringing  it  off,  and  now  that 
they  had  made  up  their  minds,  they  didn't  seem 
as  if  they  were  scarce  able  to  wait  until  Polly  had 
got  a  few  clothes  put  together.  However,  on  that 
point  both  father  and  mother  were  firm,  and  they 
insisted  that  they  should  wait  at  least  three 
months,  so  that  Polly  might  have  everything  got 
that  was  necessary,  and  would  be  suitable  to  her 
new  position. 

"  Such  a  pity  Ted  and  Rosalind  live  over  that 
horrid  old  shop,"  said  Polly  to  me  about  a  week 
before  the  wedding-day,  "  because  it  quite  pre- 
vents any  of  Oliver's  people  calling  on  her  or 
asking  her  to  go  and  see  them.  I  wonder,  when 
you  go  to  Dove  Hall,  whether  father'll  give  this 
place  to  Ted  and  Rosalind  ?  " 

"  I  dare  say  he  will  if  they  want  it,"  I  said. 

"  I  shall  suggest  it  to  him,"  said  Polly.  "  It 
would  be  rather  nice  to  have  Rosalind  here.  She's 


iS»  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

a  nice  girl,  and  I'm  really  fond  of  her;  but— - 
well,  of  course,  she  is  a  bit  loud;  there's  no  de- 
nying that." 

"Oh,  Polly!"  I  burst  out. 

"  Yes ;  I  know  you  are  thinking  about  my  ill- 
ness," she  said,  in  that  curious  new  voice  of  hers. 
"  She  was  awfully  good  and  kind  to  me,  and  I 
shall  never  forget  it  as  long  as  I  live,  and  Oliver 
won't  either.  But  she  is  a  bit  loud,  Anna,  and 
she  does  lead  one  a  bit  wrong  in  little  things.  You 
know  that  as  well  as  I  do." 

I  thought  of  "  pa  "  and  "  ma  "  and  half  a  dozen 
other  little  ways  in  which  we  had  thought  Rosa- 
lind so  stylish,  and  had  afterward  found  that  she 
hadn't  been  stylish  at  all,  only  different  to  our- 
selves. 

"  Polly,"  I  burst  out,  "  has  it  ever  struck  you 
that — that  we  don't  know  the  difference,  that  we 
don't  seem  able  to  tell  when  it's  stylish  and  when 
it's  only  what  Mrs.  Vaughan  calls  '  quite  impos- 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  159 

sible  ? '  Didn't  Mrs.  Vaughan  tell  us  the  other 
day  that '  don't  it '  and  '  ain't  it '  are  just  enough 
to  wreck  anybody  anywhere  ?  And  yet  last  week, 
when  we  were  up  at  Astley  Crescent,  didn't  Lady 
Millicent  say:  'Ain't  that  sweetly  pretty,  Mrs. 
Binks?" 

"  Yes,  she  did !  But,  all  the  same,  Mrs.  Vaugh- 
an's  perfectly  right,  Anna,  and  we  owe  her  a  lot 
— far  more  than  we  know  of.  It's  like  this — it's 
not  right  to  say  *  ain't  it '  and  '  don't  it,'  and  all 
the  other  things  that  people  say  wrong.  But  a 
woman  like  Lady  Millicent,  well  in  with  royalty, 
and  as  swagger  as  ever  she  can  stick,  can  afford 
to  say  all  sorts  of  things  that  we  daren't  even 
think  of.  If  we'd  been  born  Lady  Mary  and 
Lady  Anna,  it  wouldn't  matter  a  bit  whether  we 
talked  good  grammar  or  bad;  but  we  are  only 
Polly  and  Anna  Binks  of  Binks  and  Sons,  and 
we've  got  to  mind  every  word  we  let  drop.  Lady 
Millicent's  there;  you  and  me — I  mean,  you  and  I 


160  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

— aren't  there  yet.  It's  a  shame,  it's  unjust,  but 
so  it  is.  And  it's  just  like  this  with  me.  I'm 
young,  I'm  pretty,  I'm  going  to  marry  the  smart- 
est man  I've  ever  known  in  my  life,  and  for  his 
sake  and  my  own,  to  say  nothing  of  the  children, 
if  we  have  any,  I  mean  to  get  there  too  before 
I've  done." 

"  And  me  too,"  I  rejoined. 

We  had  such  a  wedding!  All  the  Bedding- 
ham  family  turned  up  in  great  force,  wearing 
such  clothes  and  giving  such  presents.  And  on 
our  side  we  had  Ted  and  Rosalind,  and  Georgie 
and  Gertrude,  who  had  now  been  engaged  quite 
a  long  time,  and  were  to  be  married  in  about  a 
month's  time.  I  think  Gertrude  Haman,  who  was 
an  aut-and-out  lady,  impressed  the  Beddingham's 
as  Rosalind,  with  her  bright,  winsome  bright 
eyes,  her  wide  mouth,  and  her  impulsive  man- 
ners, could  never  have  done.  But  of  all  the 
friends  on  our  side  who  came  none  created  such  a 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  161 

sensation  as  Lady  Millicent.  I  don't  know  that 
even  Polly  would  have  thought  of  asking  her,  but 
she  asked  herself,  and  did  it,  too,  in  such  a  pleas- 
ant way  that  we  couldn't  have  got  out  of  it  if 
we'd  wanted  to,  which  it  stood  to  reason  we 
didn't. 

And  how  she  showed  up  among  all  the  others ! 
She  was  so  pretty,  and  so  friendly,  and  made  her- 
self so  agreeable  all  round,  and  talked  about  "  my 
hats  and  tea-gowns,"  until  scarcely  a  woman  but 
was  wild  to  go  up  and  give  her  an  order  for 
something  or  other. 

"  Yes ;  come  up  to  Astley  Crescent  and  have  a 
cup  of  tea  with  me,"  I  heard  her  say  to  one  group 
of  girls.  "  Come  as  a  friend — I  won't  stick  you 
if  you  don't  want  to  buy  anything." 

She  wouldn't  stick  them !  Why,  she  •  might 
have  charged  anything  she  liked  when  she  put  it 
in  that  way ! 

"  Good-bye,  dear  little  bride,"  she  said  to  Polly, 


i6z  THE   SINKS    FAMILY. 

as  she,  in  a  gray  gown  trimmed  with  velvet  and 
touches  of  gold  and  a  great  black  picture-hat, 
was  taking  leave.  "  And  mind  you  don't  forget 
your  old  friends.  It's  a  way  little  brides  have, 
you  know." 

"  I  shall  never  forget  you,  Lady  Millicent," 
said  Polly,  half  shyly.  "  It's  more  likely  to  be  the 
other  way." 

"  Nay ;  my  worst  enemies  couldn't  say  that  of 
me,"  said  Lady  Millicent,  quite  solemnly.  "  And 
I  owe  your  dear,  kind,  good  mother  too  much  ever 
to  forget  her.  Come  and  see  me  when  you  get 
home  again." 

As  soon  as  the  bride  had  gone  she  left  too. 

"  Dear,  kind  friend,"  she  said  to  mother,  "  I 
must  go.  My  dummies. at  Astley  Crescent  may 
have  lost  half  a  dozen  customers  for  me.  Busi- 
ness is  business,  and  must  be  attended  to.  By 
the  way,  what  a  wonderful  effect  of  color  that  is. 
Did  you  ever  see  anything  like  it  ?  " 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  163 

In  truth,  I  was  quite  startled  by  the  tones  of 
color  that  she  pointed  out.  For  I,  as  chief  brides- 
maid, had  carried  a  loose  posy  of  yellow  roses, 
and,  finding  them  a  nuisance  to  carry  about,  had 
put  them  safely  by  on  a  side-table,  where  I  had 
laid  them  down  without  noticing  that  I  had  put 
them  against  a  scarf  of  faded  rose-colored  crepe- 
de-chine,  which  mother  had  worn  over  shoulders 
at  the  wedding. 

"  Yellow  roses  half-blown  and  old  rose  with  a 
touch  of  gold,"  said  Lady  Millicent.  "I  shall  go 
home  and  immortalize  the  scheme  at  once." 


164  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 


CHAPTER   XII. 

DOVE   HALL. 

"  It  is  astonishing  how,  when  people  get  up  in  the 
world,  the  ties  of  family  affection  begin  to  weaken." 

WITHIN  a  year  of  Polly's  wedding  we  left 
Rosedale  for  ever  and  took  up  our  abode  at  Dove 
Hall.  I  was  glad  in  one  way  and  sorry  in  an- 
other. For  one  thing,  I  was  glad  to  start  fresh 
in  a  new  neighborhood  and  on  a  new  scale.  We 
were  much,  much  richer  than  when  we  had  gone 
to  Rosedale,  and  father  was  one  of  those  people 
who  never  grudge  spending  money  because  he 
happened  to  have  made  it  himself. 

"  What  money  fetches  is  what  money's  worth," 
he  used  to  say.  "  I  'ate  people  to  spend  what 
they  'aven't  got,  nipping  and  screwing  and  pinch- 
ing to  keep  up  appearances ;  it's  little  if  anything 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  165 

short  of  dishonest.  But  if  you  'ave  money,  and 
will  be  happier  by  spending  it,  why,  you're  a  fool 
to  hoard  it  for  others  to  spend  later  on." 

So  he  spent  freely  and  ungrudgingly,  and  we 
started  life  at  Dove  Hall  with  a  carriage  and  pair, 
in  addition  to  the  brougham  and  victoria  that  we 
had  driven  at  Rosedale.  Father  still  had  his  cart, 
and  I  had  a  trap  of  my  own,  and  a  riding-horse 
too.  And  mother  had  her  own  maid,  though  not 
without  protest  all  the  same. 

"  My  dear,"  she  said,  when  it  was  first  talked 
about,  "it  makes  me  miserable  to  let  a  soul  lay  so 
much  as  a  finger  on  my  head.  She  would  have  to 
do  my  hair  for  me " 

"  Not  if  you  didn't  choose  her  to,  mother,"  said 
Polly. 

Mother  looked  doubtful. 

"  Oh,  well,  as  to  that,"  she  said,  "I  never  did 
see  the  force  of  keeping  a  dog  and  barking  my- 
self. I  don't  want  a  maid,  and  I  shan't  be  com- 


1 66  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

fortable  with  a  maid ;  but  if  I've  got  to  have  one 
for  show,  I'll  not  keep  her  to  look  at.  I  didn't 
like  Elizabeth  waiting  at  table  when  we  first  went 
to  Rosedale,  but  I  got  used  to  it  after  a  bit,  and  I 
dare  say  I  should  miss  it  now." 

So  we  persuaded  her  to  start  a  maid,  and  we 
also  set  up  a  butler  and  a  footman  when  we  took 
possession  of  Dove  Hall ;  and  I'm  sure  any  one  to 
see  my  father  sitting  down  every  night  in  his 
evening  clothes,  and  mother  in  her  good  velvet 
gown  with  its  trimming  of  rich  white  lace,  would 
never  have  believed  that  he  had  once  gone  round 
with  the  milk-cans,  or  that  she  had  ever  served  in 
the  shop. 

"  I  do  feel,  mother,  darling,"  said  Polly,  when 
she  came  down  to  Dove  Hall  for  the  first  time 
after  we  had  settled  in,  "that  you  have  got  a  really 
comfortable  house  at  last." 

"It  will  be  when  we've  got  used  to  it,"  said 
mother. 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  167 

"  At  present  I  feel  it's  too  large.  I  like  a  mod- 
est house  best." 

"  You  must  have  a  home  that  you  can  ask  us 
all  to,  if  you  want  to,"  said  Polly.  "  I  suppose 
you've  had  heaps  of  callers  ?  " 

"  A  good  number,"  said  mother. 

"  Good  people?  "  asked  Polly. 

"  Well,  that's  hard  to  say  until  we've  returned 
the  calls,"  mother  replied. 

"We  weren't  in  when  they  all  came,  Polly," 
said  I.  "  But  I  fancy  it's  rather  a  good  neighbor- 
hood. The  vicar  called  yesterday.  He's  not 
married." 

"  Of  course,  you'll  go  to  church." 

"  I  did  think  of  that,"  said  poor  mother.  "  But, 
you  know,  Polly,  I  have  always  attended  the  Con- 
gregational. I — I  couldn't  find  my  places." 

I  really  couldn't  help  laughing  at  her  woe-be- 
gone  expression  of  face. 

Polly,  however,  took  it  quite  seriously. 


1 68  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

"  There's  nothing  to  laugh  at,  Anna,"  she  said, 
solemnly.  "Of  course,  it's  quite  true  that  mother 
never  has  attended  church,  and  nobody  knows  the 
service  by  instinct,  or  any  service,  for  the  matter 
of  that.  As  to  finding  her  places,  that's  a  simple 
matter.  Anna,  you  go  up  to  Norwood  next  week 
and  see  Mrs.  Vaughan.  She's  the  one  woman 
you  can  go  to  and  ask  about  such  a  thing. 

"  But,  Polly,  you  go  to  church  yourself  now,"  I 
cried.  "  Why  can't  you  show  us  ?  " 

Polly  looked  rather  confused. 

"  Well,  to  tell  you  the  truth,"  she  said,  with  a 
blush,  "  I've  only  been  to  church  about  three  times 
since  I  was  married.  Oliver  always  wants  to  go 
somewhere  on  Sunday,  and  if  not,  he  likes  to  laze 
about.  When  I  do  go " 

"Well?" 

"Oh,  well,  I  look  over  his  book,  and  make  a 
shot  at  finding  the  right  place." 

"  But  why  don't  you  ask  him  ?    He  knows  you 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  169 

always  went  to  the  Congregational  church.  You 
were  married  there !  "  I  cried. 

"  Yes ;  I  know  he  does,"  she  admitted.  "  But  I 
never  give  myself  away  to  Oliver;  I  don't  think  it 
pays  with  most  husbands." 

Now,  wasn't  that  cute  of  Polly?  I  looked  at 
her  in  profoundest  admiration.  I  don't  think  any 
of  us  had  altered  and  improved  as  much  as  she 
had  done  since  we  had  launched  out  from  Astley 
Crescent. 

"  I  don't  think  that  there's  much  now  you  don't 
know,  Polly,"  I  burst  out. 

"  Oh,  yes,  there  is,"  said  Polly,  promptly. 
"  And  I  can  tell  you  a  husband  like  mine  is  a 

liberal  education.  Only — only Oh,  well,  I'd 

better  not  say  that,"  she  broke  off  confusedly. 

"  Yes,  do  say,  Polly,"  I  cried ;  "you're  at  home. 
I'm  not  like  any  one  else.  Do  tell  me." 

"  Well,  it's — it's  best  to  know  everything  before 
you  get  married,  because  when  you  make  a  good 


170  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

marriage  in  a  social  sense,  it's  rather  like  going 
in  for  an  examination,  with  one's  heart  in  one's 
mouth." 

She  gathered  her  laces  together  and  went  off  to 
her  room,  leaving  mother  and  me  looking  at  one 
another  in  rather  a  nonplussed  kind  of  way. 

"  She  seems  very  happy  and  very  much 
wrapped  up  in  him,"  she  said.  "  But,  for  my 
part,  I  could  never  have  contented  myself  with  a 
husband  that  wasn't  just  on  my  own  level.  I 
know  so  well  what  she  means  about  having  her 
heart  in  her  mouth.  Poor  child!  It  makes  me 
think  of  that  story  in  the  poem  about  the  poor  girl 
that  was  wedded  to  a  lord,  and  when  she  found  it 
out  she  pined  away  and  died.  Dear,  dear,  it's  bad 
enough  to  have  to  pick  and  choose  one's  words  be- 
fore company,  but  to  have  a  company  husband 
would  be  like  always  setting  on  the  edge  of  a 
knife." 

She  was  so  sensible,  was  mother,  she  always 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  171 

seemed  to  hit  the  nail  on  the  head  so  well.  And 
she  always  took  her  own  stand  too,  did  mother,  so 
that  even  in  things  that  she  didn't  know  she  came 
out  right,  and  carried  her  position  with  dignity. 
There  was  a  great  difference  between  her  and 
Polly.  It  went  against  mother's  conscience  to 
seem  to  be  anything  that  she  wasn't. 

"  I  am  what  I  am,"  she  used  to  say,  "  and  those 
who  want  to  know  me  must  take  me  as  I  am." 

Now,  Polly  was  different  to  this.  She  was  al- 
ways playing  a  part,  always  kind  of  playing  at 
being  a  grand  lady,  as  being  a  woman  of  position, 
and  she  never  seemed  to  want  to  sit  down  for  a 
rest.  Now,  I  did.  I  was  quite  as  ambitious  as 
Polly  was,  but  I  didn't  keep  it  up  as  well.  I  used 
to  get  tired  or  flurried,  and  then  I  couldn't  help 
forgetting.  I  used  to  get  mad  with  myself,  be- 
cause one  forget  did  such  a  lot  of  harm,  and  slips 
do  seem  to  stick  so  in  people's  minds. 

However,  I  must  get  on  with  my  story  and  not 


172  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

talk  so  much  about  myself.  As  I  said,  we  were 
settled  at  Dove  Hall,  and  though  we  entertained 
lavishly  enough,  supported  all  the  local  charities, 
subscribed  to  the  hunt,  and  started  a  soup-kitchen 
for  the  winter,  and  undertook  to  supply  all  the 
sick  in  the  parish  with  invalid  food,  we  couldn't 
get  any  further  socially. 

True,  we  had  lots  of  people  on  our  visiting-list, 
over  thirty,  and  mother  and  I  used  to  drive  round 
with  a  card-case  making  solemn  calls  and  talking 
about  the  weather,  but  though  we  went  to  a  din- 
ner now  and  again,  or  to  a  big  garden-party 
where  nobody  was  introduced  to  anybody,  we 
never  seemed  to  settle  down  as  we  had  done  at 
Rosedale.  Personally,  I  don't  believe  it  pays  liv- 
ing down  in  the  country.  The  game  certainly  is 
not  worth  the  candle.  Of  course,  our  estate  was 
nothing  of  an  estate  judging  by  the  two  or  three 
great,  land-owners  round  about.  Not  that  they 
were  the  very  smallest  good  to  anybody  in  a  social 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  173 

sense  excepting  for  opening  bazaars  or  laying 
foundation-stones  of  new  schoolrooms  or  other 
buildings  not  sufficiently  important  to  attract 
royalty. 

Still,  we  had  just  over  a  hundred  acres,  and 
though  our  house  was  new,  we  had  everything  in 
the  way  of  pleasure  grounds  that  could  well  be 
laid  out  in  six  acres  of  land.  On  one  side  of  the 
house  the  rooms  opened  onto  a  broad  terrace  with 
a  walk  overlooking  the  park  and  with  a  broad 
flight  of  steps  at  either  end.  We  had  a  great 
conservatory  running  all  along  another  side  of  the 
house,  a  marble  fountain,  a  bowling-alley,  an 
Italian  garden,  a  rosary,  and  the  very  best  tennis- 
court  and  croquet-ground  that  ever  I  played  on. 
As  father  said,  it  might  be  new,  but  it  was  whole- 
some, and  would  bear  looking  into.  The  expert 
gardener  who  laid  out  the  grounds  had  so  ar- 
ranged them  as  to  take  advantage  of  every  tree 
that  happened  to  be  growing,  and  for  the  rest,  it 


174  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

was  no  use  people  looking  round  and  sneering 
about  its  newness,  for  there  weren't  such  roses 
or  such  flowers  in  all  the  countryside. 

Still,  as  I  say,  a  life  in  the  country  isn't  worth 
it.  Everybody  came  down  on  us  like  a  swarm 
of  locusts. 

"  Now,  Mrs.  Binks,  you  must  help  me  out  with 
my  old  women,  or  my  young  women,  or  my  or- 
phans, or  my  ill-used  children." 

We  were  expected  to  give,  give,  give,  to  buy  up 
whole  stalls  at  bazaars,  to  strip  our  gardens  and 
conservatories  for  all  sorts  of  decorations,  to  give 
prizes  for  all  sorts  of  shows,  to  provide  for  all  the 
needy,  to  be  soft  to  the  widow  and  the  fatherless. 

"  You're  so  rich  and  generous,  Mr.  Binks,"  the 
ladies  used  to  say,  when  they  got  hold  of  father. 
"  You'll  never  miss  it." 

Then  there  were  the  tips  of  all  sorts  that  seemed 
absolutely  necessary  if  we  meant  to  be  anybody 
in  country  life.  I'm  sure  at  Christmas  we  spent 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  175 

enough  to  have  kept  a  family.  In  fact,  it  took 
mother  and  the  cook  the  best  part  of  a  week  to 
arrange  all  the  hampers,  for  nobody  must  be  for- 
gotten. There  was  an  extra  large  one  for  the 
station-master,  others  for  all  the  railway  officials, 
and  we  had  to  put  on  the  list  the  post-mistress, 
the  huntsman,  every  one  of  our  own  laborers,  all 
the  old  women  at  the  almshouses,  the  matron  of 
the  orphanage,  the  parish  clerk — until,  as  father 
said  at  last,  it  seemed  as  if  we  had  left  out  nobody 
excepting  the  minister,  or,  I  should  say,  the  vicar 
of  the  parish. 

"  I've  literally  not  had  time  to  get  a  thing  for 
my  relations,"  said  mother  to  Polly  the  day  before 
Christmas  Eve.  "  There's  Ted  and  Rosalind,  and 
the  other  boys  and  their  wives.  And  there's  your 
father's  sisters;  I've  always  sent  each  of  them 
something  at  Christmas-time.  I  must  go  up  to 
London  first  thing  in  the  morning,  and  when  I've 
got  what  I  want,  I  must  go  to  Astley  Crescent, 


176  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

and  pack  them  there  so  as  to  get  them  sent  off  in 
time." 

"  I  shouldn't,  mother,  darling,"  said  Polly ; 
"  you'll  be  utterly  fagged  out." 

"  Oh,  I  must,"  said  mother ;  and  she  looked 
quite  shocked  at  Polly,  for  she  had  always  kept  a 
tight  hold  on  the  old  customs  and  festivals. 

"  Well,  I  suppose  you  will  have  to  buy  some- 
thing for  the  boys  and  their  wives,  unless  you 
like  to  give  them  a  check  each,  to  spend  as  they 
like.  But  for  Aunt  Emily  and  Aunt  Sarah,  and 
Cousin  Gilbert  and  her  children,  and  Marion  Sel- 
ford  and  all  her  swarm,  I  certainly  should  never 
dream  of  putting  myself  out  to  buy  special  things 
for  them." 

"  My  own  sisters-in-law !"  said  mother,  aghast. 

"  Oh,  well,  if  they  are  your  sisters-in-law, 
they're  very  little  good  to  you,"  Polly  said,  icily. 
"  What  did  you  do  with  all  those  things  Mrs. 
Winton  made  you  buy  at  the  bazaar  the  last  time 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  177 

I  was  down  here?  Turn  them  all  over  and  see 
if  you  can't  find  things  that  will  do  very  well. 
You  bought  them  ever  so  many  toilet-tidies,  pin- 
cushions and  pillow-shams,  and  some  quite  nice 
pinafores,  too.  Surely,  they're  good  enough  to 
send  any  one." 

Mother  rather  unwillingly  went  to  the  room 
where  she  kept  all  her  stores  of  linen  and  such- 
like, and  turned  out  all  the  purchases  that  had 
been  forced  on  her  at  the  various  sales  of  work  to 
which  we  had  gone.  Polly  made  a  selection 
quickly  enough. 

"  That  for  Aunt  Sarah,"  holding  up  a  large 
blue-silk  pin-cushion;  "that  for  her  eldest  girl; 
this  pinafore  for  little  Lotty.  I'm  sure,  if  Aunt 
Sarah  doesn't  like  that  she  ought  to  be  ashamed 
of  herself." 

"  But,  Polly,"  put  in  mother,  "there  isn't  the 
value  of  the  hampers  we  sent  to  the  laborers." 

"Oh,  well,  as  to  that,"  said  Polly,  "the  laborers 


178  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

expect  it  of  you.  Relations  are  different.  You've 
got  to  keep  in  with  the  station-master  and  all  those 
people.  A  little  remembrance  is  all  relations  look 
for/' 


THE  BINKS   FAMILY.  179 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  TOWERS. 
"  Prosperity  does  not  suit  everybody." 

WHAT  I  had  more  than  anything  against  the 
neighborhood  of  Dove  Hall  was  the  fact — a  sad 
and  melancholy  fact — that  there  were  no  young 
men.  It  is  true  that  the  Ormondes  had  a  brother 
and  two  cousins,  who  used  to  come  down  very  of- 
ten on  Saturday  afternoons  to  Miles  Court  and 
stay  till  Monday  morning.  But  they  were  no 
good  to  me,  or,  indeed,  to  anybody  but  the  Or- 
monde girls,  who  took  good  care  that  no  one  else 
had  a  look  in  where  their  "  boys,"  as  they  called 
them,  were  concerned.  They  said  that  Greville 
Ormonde,  who  was  eating  his  dinners  for  the 
bar,  and  who  looked  one  up  and  down  as  if  one 


i8o  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

was  a  filly  for  sale,  and  he  didn't  feel  like  being  a 
buyer,  didn't  care  for  dancing  or  for  girls. 

"  When  our  brother  Greville  comes  down,  and 
sometimes  one  or  both  of  our  cousins  with  him," 
said  Katharine  Ormonde  to  me  one  day,  "  we 
never  can  get  him  to  show.  He  says  he  can't 
stand  the  local  young  women  anyhow  after  Lon- 
don girls." 

"  I  can  quite  understand  that,"  I  rejoined  very 
tartly.  "  I  think  they're  so  wise,  because,  being 
local  young  men  themselves,  they  should  mix  as 
much  with  London  people  as  they  possibly  can. 
Of  course,  I've  lived  in  London  all  my  life,  you 
know,  and  what  strikes  me  more  than  anything 
else  now  I  am  down  here  is  the  horrid  localness 
of  everybody.  One  would  think,  to  hear  some 
of  the  people  in  the  neighborhood  talk,  that  this 
was  a  foretaste  of  heaven,  and  Lord  and  Lady 
Dovedale  the  angels  with  flaming  swords  that 
stand  at  the  gates." 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  181 

She  never  gave  me  any  of  her  impudence  after 
that,  but  was  quite  civil  and  friendly.  But  I 
didn't  forget.  I  don't  believe  in  forgetting  either 
good  or  bad,  for  neither  way  pays.  Polly  isn't 
like  that.  Look  how  she  forgot  about  Rosalind. 
But  there ;  I  mustn't  start  on  that  story  to-day,  or 
else  I  shall  never  finish  about  Katharine  Ormonde 
and  her  boys.  As  I  say,  I  didn't  forget,  and  the 
next  time  the  Ormondes  had  a  garden-party  on, 
with  a  dancing-marquee  and  a  band,  and  unlimit- 
ed strawberries  and  cream,  and  cup  of  all  sorts,  I 
just  didn't  go.  And  I  didn't  pretend  I  had  an 
engagement  either;  I  just  didn't  go.  That  rather 
brought  my  young  ladies  to  their  bearings,  for 
they  had  a  sale  of  work  on  at  the  time,  and  if  I 
had  gone  they'd  have  been  at  least  ten  pounds  in 
pocket,  for  father  is  so  generous  he  always  forks 
out  well  when  there's  any  sort  of  charity  on  foot. 

Scarcely  any  of  the  other  families  had  sons  be- 
sides the  Ormondes.  The  Dwyers  had  two  boys 


i8a  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

at  Harrow,  and  the  Mackenzies  had  a  boy  at 
Eton,  but  they  didn't  exactly  count,  you  see. 
Then  there  were  the  Combes  at  Combe  Stratton 
with  several  sons,  but  all  away  and  out  in  the 
world — one  in  Western  Australia,  one  in  Japan, 
and  the  third  on  a  tea-plantation  in  Ceylon.  Then 
the  only  son  of  the  Mordaunts  was  learning  to  be 
a  doctor  in  London,  and  both  the  boys  at  the  doc- 
tor's were  away  from  home  altogether.  Now,  in 
all  these  houses  there  were  girls,  and  so  you  can 
imagine  what  an  Adamless  Eden  Dovedale  was ! 

Then,  of  course,  our  three  boys  were  married, 
and  all  three  of  them  so  wrapped  up  in  their 
wives  and  babies  that  they  were  no  good  to  me  at 
all,  not  even  to  bring  home  other  young  fellows 
to  help  make  things  hum  a  little.  Oh,  dear,  take 
it  all  round,  my  life  was  very  grand,  but  it  was 
horribly  dull ! 

It  was,  therefore,  natural  enough  that  I  should 
spend  a  good  deal  of  my  time  with  Rosalind  at 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  183 

dear  Rosedale.  I  might  have  been  expected  to 
go  more  to  Polly's,  but,  somehow,  the  atmosphere 
of  Polly's  house  didn't  suit  me  like  my  brother's 
did.  For  Polly  had  never  been  the  same  since 
her  marriage;  she  seemed  so  taken  up  with  so- 
ciety, and  such  a  lift  above  all  her  own  people, 
that  I  felt  kind  of  frozen  in  her  company 

Now,  with  Rosalind  I  always  felt  gay  and  hap- 
py. Rosalind  might  be  a  bit  loud,  as  Polly  was 
so  fond  of  reminding  one,  but  she  was  so  bright 
and  full  of  fun,  always  ready  to  take  a  bit  of 
pleasure  when  occasion  offered,  and  she  was  al- 
ways the  same.  I  don't  wonde*-  our  Ted  was  as 
wrapped  up  in  her  as  he  was,  for  she  was  a  splen- 
did wife  to  him,  and  never  turned  up  her  nose  at 
the  business  that  had  made  us  all  rich  and  well  up 
in  the  world,  as  Polly  was  so  fond  of  doing. 

"  Really,  Rosalind,"  Polly  said  one  day,  when 
she  had  driven  over  to  see  me  at  Rosedale,  "  I  do 
wonder  you  should  take  up  with  the  Tompkin- 


i84  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

sons.  They're  no  use  to  any  one,  tradespeople 
like  them." 

"  Tradespeople,  indeed !  "  Rosalind  flashed  out. 
"  And  why  shouldn't  I  know  tradespeople  ? 
We're  tradespeople  ourselves." 

"  A  colossal  concern  like  Binks  and  Sons " 

began  Polly,  turning  absolutely  scarlet. 

"  Pooh !  "  Rosalind  interrupted.  "  It's  trade 
all  the  same — retail  trade !  Not  that  I  mind.  I 
married  my  dear  old  Ted  because  I  fell  in  love 
with  him,  though  my  people  did  think  I  might 
have  looked  higher.  I  don't  know  that  I'm  any 
better  or  worse  for  it  in  a  social  sense,  but  I'm 
happy  and  Ted's  happy,  and  that's  the  main 
thing." 

"  Oh,  of  course,  just  as  you  like,"  said  Polly, 
loftily.  "  It's  nothing  to  me  what  sort  of  a  swim 
you're  in.  If  the  Tompkinsons  make  you  happy, 
you're  quite  right  to  stick  to  them.  What  I  came 
for  to-day  was  $9  ask  you  and  Anna  to  come. to 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  185 

my  drawing-room  tea  on  the  26th.  I'm  going  to 
be  presented." 

"  Oh,  yes,  we'll  come  with  pleasure,"  said  Rosa- 
lind— "  with  pleasure.  Who's  going  to  present 
you?" 

"  Lady  Bunderby,"  said  Polly,  languidly. 
"  Well,  I  must  be  going.  I'm  so  fearfully  busy 
just  now.  Good-bye,  Rosalind,  my  dear.  Good- 
bye, Anna,  darling." 

Rosalind  stood  at  the  window  watching  my 
sister  get  into  her  carriage. 

"  There  goes  a  good  woman  gone  wrong,"  she 
said,  with  a  quick  sigh.  "  Do  you  know,  Anna, 
I  never  like  to  think  of  Polly  as  she  was  and 
Polly  as  she  is  now." 

"  She  has  altered,"  I  admitted. 

"  She  doesn't  seem  to  see  the  right  end  up  of 
things,"  said  Rosalind.  "  Can't  she  see  that  get- 
ting presented  by  Lady  Bunderby  is  social 
damnation  and  nothing  else.  I  can't  get  present- 


i86  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

ed  just  yet — I  may  later  on  when  Ted's  a  big 
enough  tradesman ;  but  when  I  do  it  won't  be  by 
a  City  woman,  I  can  tell  you.  I  shall  get  a 
duchess  to  stand  social  godmother  for  me." 

"  A  duchess !  "    I  stood  and  stared  at  her. 

"  Lor',  yes,  my  dear ;  they've  all  got  their  price, 
every  one  of  them,"  said  Rosalind,  with  a  laugh. 
"  Of  course,  at  present,  as  Binks  and  Sons  stands, 
I  couldn't  go  to  Court,  but  after  it's  turned  into  a 
company  it  will  be  another  matter  altogether." 

We  went  to  Polly's  drawing-room  tea  on  the 
26th.  What  a  show  it  was,  and  what  a  crowd! 
Polly  looked  charming  in  white  satin  embroider- 
ed with  seed  pearls,  with  a  lot  of  new  diamonds 
about  her,  and  a  bouquet  that  was  a  perfect 
dream.  And  Lady  Bunderby  was  there  too — a 
fat,  red-faced  old  lady,  with  a  hoarse  voice  and 
thick  red  arms ;  and  there  was  a  gaunt  daughter, 
whose  looks  had  seen  better  days.  They  were 
both  awfully  well  dressed,  with  lovely  jewels  and 


THE   SINKS   FAMILY.  187 

exquisite  flowers,  and  nobody  seemed  to  see  that 
Lady  Bunderby  would  have  looked  more  at  home 
in  a  kitchen.  As  for  Polly,  she  went  up  like  a 
rocket  after  that,  and  got  very  exclusive,  what 
she  called  smart.  I  admired  her  for  it  in  some 
ways,  for  I  was  quite  as  ambitious  as  she  was,  and 
I  never  could  see  the  good  of  sitting  down  satis- 
fied to  be  at  the  bottom.  But  Polly  went  too 
far;  she  made  herself  uncomfortable,  and  that 
seemed  to  me  rather  silly. 

Of  course,  Polly  had  married  a  society  man, 
and  she  was  quite  right  to  live  up  to  his  position, 
and  better  it  if  she  could;  but  when  she  began 
to  pick  her  own  flesh  and  blood  to  pieces,  and  to 
perfectly  fag  herself  out  in  her  efforts  to  be 
grand,  why,  that  was  what  I  call  going  too  far, 
and  making  a  sacrifice  of  herself  to  no  purpose. 

"  Now  we  shall  be  able  to  breathe  again,"  said 
Rosalind,  with  her  gay  laugh,  as  we  came  down 
the  steps  of  Polly's  house. 


i88  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

It  was  such  a  big,  smart  house,  with  balconies 
full  of  lovely  flowers  kept  by  contract,  with  a 
garden  that  was  tended  in  the  same  way,  and 
real  lace  curtains  to  all  the  windows.  The  day  of 
her  drawing-room  tea  there  were  at  least  a  dozen 
footmen  waiting  about,  so  grand  that  they  made 
me  shiver  in  spite  of  myself  and  of  the  fact  that 
we  had  two  men-servants  waiting  at  dinner  every 
night  of  our  lives.  Those  who  had  been  at  the 
drawing-room  had  great  posies  pinned  to  their 
breasts,  and  looked  proud  enough  to  have  been 
royalties  themselves,  instead  of  only  serving-men 
who  had  waited  outside. 

The  next  day  Polly  drove  over  to  see  us  again. 

"  I  want  you  to  come  and  stay  a  few  days  with 
me,  Anna,"  she  said,  when  she  had  languidly 
touched  each  of  us  on  both  cheeks. 

"  Oh,  Anna  can't  possibly  go  away  yet !  "  cried 
Rosalind. 

Polly  lifted  her  eyebrows. 


.THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  189 

"And  why?" 

"  Because  she  has  made  several  most  particu- 
lar engagements,"  said  Rosalind,  stoutly. 

"  How  very  tiresome !  "  said  Polly.  "  I  espe- 
cially wished  to  have  her  after  Thursday.  I 
have  several  things  on  that  she  would  have  liked. 
However,  since  you've  fixed  yourself  up,  I  must 
do  without  you.  But  what  day  will  you  come  ?  " 

We  fixed  the  day,  and  she  went  away,  having 
an  engagement  for  lunch  not  very  far  away.  It 
was  extraordinary  how  busy  Polly  always  was. 
She  never  had  more  than  a  few  minutes  to  spare 
when  she  came  to  Rosedale,  and  always  had  some- 
thing or  other  on  to  which  she  had  "  positively 
to  fly." 

"  I'm  so  glad  to  have  got  you  away  from  Rosa- 
lind, Anna,  darling,"  she  said,  when  I  arrived  at 
the  Towers.  "  Of  course,  I  know  she's  very 
dear  and  sweet  and  all  that,  and  that  she  makes 
Ted  a  perfectly  splendid  wife.  But  seriously,  she 


i9o  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

is  —  you  know.  And  I've  been  so  nervous 
lest  you  should  take  up  with  some  young 
man  in  her  set.  You  know,  Anna,  with  your 
looks  and  your  money,  you  can  look  higher 
than  that." 

"  I  don't  seem  to  be  in  the  way  of  taking  up  with 
a  young  man  in  any  one's  set,"  I  rejoined,  with 
a  laugh.  "  I  was  twenty-one  last  month.  I'm 
getting  on,  Polly." 

"  Time  enough,"  said  she,  nodding  her  head. 

I  am  bound  to  say  she  trotted  out  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  young  men  for  my  inspection,  but 
somehow  they  never  seemed  good  enough  to  think 
of  as  being  worth  tying  one's  self  to  for  life.  I 
liked  them  to  dance  with  and  to  flirt  with,  and 
that  was  all. 

I  had  been  at  the  Towers  three  days,  when 
one  day,  just  at  lunch  time,  Polly  got  a  telegram 
from  Oliver.  She  opened  it  in  her  usual  languid 
way,  but  gave  a  great  start  as  she  grasped  its 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  191 

contents.     Then  she  passed  it  to  me,  and  I  read : 

"  Bringing  Lord  Robert  Blount  down  to  dinner  to- 
night" 

And  she  made  such  a  fuss  over  it.  A  dozen 
questions  seemed  to  rise  to  her  lips  at  once. 
Should  she  get  a  few  friends  to  meet  him? 
Should  she  wear  her  best  white  satin  .gown,  the 
one  she  had  had  new  the  week  before  for  Lady 
Bunderby's  ball,  or  should  she  wear  the  new 
pink  one  that  hadn't  yet  seen  the  light?  Should 
she  put  the  champagne  in  ice  at  once,  and  must 
she  order  fresh  table  flowers  ? 

"  My  dear  Polly,"  I  said,  "  the  flowers  were 
fresh  this  morning.  Wear  your  plainest  black 
evening  gown.  Just  think  over  the  dinner,  for 
you  may  be  able  to  make  one  or  two  little  im- 
provements in  the  menu.  Tell  Walters  that  'your 
master  is  bringing  a  gentleman  down/  but  don't 
say  who.  You  can  tell  him  what  wine  to  have, 
but  leave  the  icing  to  him." 


192  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

She  drew  a  long  breath  as  if  she  were  re- 
lieved. 

"  You  evidently  don't  know  the  importance  of 
Lord  Robert  Blount,"  she  said.  "  He  can  make 
or  mar  any  woman.  In  society  he  is  all  power- 
ful. Oh,  if  only  Oliver  had  known  him  before 
I  got  presented !  " 

"  It's  no  use  getting  into  a  flurry,"  I  said,  quiet- 
ly. "  He  wants  something  of  us,  or  he  wouldn't 
be  coming  to-night." 

"  You  have  got  so  detestably  commercial  lately, 
Anna,"  Polly  cried. 

"All  the  better  if  I  have.  I'm  sure  if  this 
Lord  Blount  sees  that  his  coming  has  put  you 
in  flurry,  he  won't  think  half  as  much  of  you  as 
if  you  take  him  as  a  matter  of  course.  And, 
after  all,  who  is  Lord  Blount  when  he's  at  home? 
I  dare  say  father  could  buy  him  up,  and  have 
enough  to  spare  for  all  of  us." 

"Oh,     be     quiet!"     cried     Polly,     pettishly. 


THE  BINKS   FAMILY.  193 

"  What's  the  good  of  pretending  that  such  a 
man  isn't  somebody  important?  By  the  by,  I 
wonder  if  Oliver  remembered  that  we  had  asked 
young  Knipp  for  to-night?" 


i94  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

REMEMBER  ! 

"  Many  excellent  persons,  who  are  quite  capable  of 
comporting  themselves  with  ease  and  dignity  on  ordinary 
occasions,  go  completely  astray  when  brought  face  to 
face  with  unusual  circumstances." 

I  NEVER  saw  Polly  show  to  so  little  advantage 
as  she  did  that  evening  Oliver  brought  Lord 
Blount  down  to  the  Towers.  In  the  first  place, 
she  hadn't  taken  my  advice  about  her  frock,  but 
was  wearing  the  new  pink  gown,  which  was  much 
too  dressy  for  a  quiet  dinner  of  five  people.  I  saw 
Lord  Blount  kind  of  run  his  eye  over  her  with  a 
look  of  surprise  and  admiration  mixed. 

"  So  kind  of  you  to  let  Beddingham  bring  me 
down  in  this  unceremonious  fashion,"  he  said,  as 
he  took  her  hand. 

He  was  a  tall,  light  man,  very  fair  and  stylish- 


THE   SINKS    FAMILY.  195 

looking.  It  would  be  hard  to  say  his  age,  for 
he  looked  very  young  in  some  lights  and  rather 
old  in  others — at  least,  I  mean  past  his  youth. 
His  voice  was  very  soft  and  sweet,  and  he  had  a 
curious  accent,  something  of  a  drawl  and  some- 
thing of  a  clipping  of  his  words.  Now,  he  was 
a  man — But  then,  as  the  thought  came  into  my 
head,  I  labeled  it  impossible,  for  what  Lord 
Blount  or  Lord  Anybody  else  would  ever  look 
at  me  in  that  way? 

"  I'm  delighted  to  see  you,  Lord  Blount,"  said 
Polly.  "  Let  me  introduce  my  sister  to  you." 

He  turned  from  her  to  me  and  took  my  hand, 
holding  it  fast — no,  not  fast,  but  with  a  gentle, 
protective  kind  of  friendliness,  just  as  he  had 
done  hers. 

"  I    am    charmed   to   meet   you,    Miss — er — 

Miss " 

.    "  Binks,"  I  said. 

i    "  Ah,  yes ;  now  I  think  of  it,  Beddingham  did 


196  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

tell  me  your  name  when  he  said  I  should  meet 
you  this  evening."  Then  he  turned  back  to 
Polly.  "  What  a  perfectly  charming  place  you 
have  here,  Mrs.  Beddingham!  Who  would 
think  we  were  within  driving  distance  of  London. 
I  suppose  you  do  drive?  How  long  does  it  take 
you  to  the  Criterion,  for  instance  ?  " 

"  About  half  an  hour — sometimes  less  if  the 
road  is  clear  and  the  horses  are  fresh,"  Polly  re- 
plied. 

Then  the  door  opened,  and  Walters  announced 
"  Mr.  Knipp." 

I  had  never  seen  Mr.  Knipp  before.  He  came 
in  and  straight  up  to  Polly. 

"  I'm  afraid  I'm  rather  late,  Mrs.  Bedding- 
ham,"  he  said. 

"  If  you  are  it  doesn't  matter,"  said  Polly ;  "for 
Oliver  brought  Lord  Blount  down  with  him,  and 
he  is  gone  up  to  dress.  We  are  always  bound 
to  give  him  a  few  minutes'  grace,  you  know.  By 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  197 

the  way,  do  you  know  Lord  Blount?  Let  me  in- 
troduce you — Mr.  Knipp,"  she  added  to  Lord 
Blount. 

"  I  am  afraid  I  am  only  Lord  Robert  Blount," 
said  the  guest  of  the  evening,  in  a  very  modest 
kind  of  way.  "Lord  Blount  is  my  elder  brother, 
unfortunately  for  me — in  a  money  sense,  I  mean," 
he  added,  all  in  a  hurry,  as  a  queer  expression 
came  upon  Polly's  face,  "for  as  a  brother  I  am 
devoted  to  him."  Then  he  just  touched  Mr. 
Knipp's  hand,  and  turned  back  to  me  again. 

A  minute  or  two  later  Oliver  Beddingham  came 
in,  and  we  all  stood  chatting  while  waiting  for 
dinner  to  be  served.  Oliver  Beddingham  wasn't 
in  the  least  flurried  by  his  grand  guest.  He 
called  him  Blount  as  if  he'd  been  a  city  man  like 
himself,  and  treated  him  in  the  most  ordinary 
manner  possible.  I  saw  that  Polly  was  bothered 
as  to  how  she  must  address  him.  He  had  told 
her  himself  that  he  wasn't  Lord  Blount,  and  yet 


198  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

Oliver  called  him  plain  Blount  without  any  title 

at  all.     I  did  wish  I  could  have  had  a  dip  into 

I 

"  Hints  "  at  that  moment.  I  should  have  found 
out  all  about  it  there,  I  know. 

It  did  seem  a  thousand  pities,  but  in  her  flurry 
Polly  made  such  a  slip — a  real  forget.  For  when 
we  went  in  to  dinner,  Oliver  leading  the  way  by 
himself,  turning  half  round  as  he  went,  and  talk- 
ing ever  so  easily  to  Mr.  Knipp  and  me,  and 
Polly  and  Lord  Robert  Blount  bringing  up  the 
rear,  she  went  to  the  head  of  the  table,  and,  point- 
ing to  the  chair  between  Lord  Robert  Blount  and 
Oliver,  said: 

"You  set  there,  Anna." 

And  in  her  flurry  she  never  seemed  to  realize 
what  she  had  said.  I  caught  a  flicker  go  across 
IxDrd  Robert  Blount's  face,  but  if  Oliver  heard  he 
kept  himself  well  under  control. 

"  I  think,  darling,  if  you'll  excuse  me,  that  it 
would  be  the  best  way,  as  we  are  such  an  awk- 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  199 

ward  number  as  five,  if  Lord  Robert  sat  on  your 
right  hand  instead  of  your  left.  We  can't  part  Mr. 
Knipp  from  the  lady  he  brought  in,  can  we  ?  " 

"  I'll  alter  the  cover,  sir,"  put  in  Walters, 
anxiously.  "  I  thought  you  would  bring  in  Miss 
Binks." 

"  As  in  strict  politeness  I  ought  to  have  done," 
said  Oliver,  good-humoredly.  "  But  when  the 
lady  is  a  sister-in-law,  it  makes  a  very  nice  dis- 
tinction whichever  way  one  takes  it,  eh,  Blount  ?  " 

"  I  think  it  is  all  right  as  it  is,"  said  Lord  Rob- 
ert, smiling. 

Polly  was  right  enough  when  she  declared  that 
it  was  a  liberal  education  to  be  married  to  a  hus- 
band like  hers.  You  see,  he  knew  right  enough 
how  to  address  the  lord — Lord  Robert!  Simple 
enough  when  you  knew.  All  the  same,  I  took 
an  opportunity  of  making  sure  when  Polly  and 
I  left  the  table  and  the  three  men  to  enjoy  their 
cigarettes. 


2OO 


"  Polly,  where  do  you  keep  '  Hints  ? ' "  I  asked. 

"  Oh,  I  threw  that  away  ages  since ! "  said 
Polly. 

"  Did  you  ?  Oh,  well,  you  were  pretty  fogged 
to-night  about  how  to  call  him,"  I  said,  a  little 
sharply.  "  And  you  made  an  awful  slip " 

"  Hush — sh !  "  cried  she,  with  her  finger  to  her 
lips  and  looking  apprehensively  round.  "  Here's 
Walters  with  the  coffee.  Hush — sh !  " 

I  shut  up  at  once,  and  sat  idly  back  in  my  chair, 
as  Walters,  followed  by  a  footman,  served  us 
with  coffee  and  liqueurs.  Then,  when  the  door 
closed,  my  sister  turned  eagerly  to  me  and  said : 

"What  did  I  do?" 

"  You  said  to  me :    '  You  set  there,  Anna.'  " 

"  Did  I  really  ?    Are  you  sure  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  I'm  quite  sure  that  you  really  did,"  I 
replied ;  "  and  what  was  more,  Lord  Robert  no- 
ticed it." 

"Did  Oliver?" 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  201 

"  I  fancy  not.  He  hid  it  wonderfully  well  if 
he  did." 

"  Oh,  then  he  didn't !  That's  all  right,"  she  said, 
in  a  relieved  tone.  "As  to  Lord  Robert — Oh, 
well,  it's  fearfully  annoying,  for  it's  only  when 
I'm  upset  and  flurried  that  little  things  slip  out." 

"  You  ought  to  be  srre  on  that  point  by  this 
time,  Polly,"  I  said,  rather  severely;  for  really 
Polly  did  pick  holes  so  in  every  one  else. 

"  Yes,  I  ought.  It  only  shows  how  careful 
one  ought  to  be  in  bringing  children  up.  If  we 
had  been  sent  to  first-class  French  or  German 
schools,  or  both,  we  should  never  make  slips  of 
that  kind.  But,  of  curse,  neither  father  nor 
mother,  poor  darlings,  had  any  ambition  beyond 
making  money,  or  any  ideas  that  we  should  want 
to  begin  where  they  leave  off." 

"  They  gave  us  a  much  better  education  than 
either  of  them  had,  but  I  don't  know  that  any  of 
us  are  as  much  of  a  credit  to  it,"  I  remarked. 


202  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

"  It's  not  a  question  of  education ;  it's Oh, 

well,  don't  let  us  go  into  that  subject,  Anna,  un- 
less you  want  me  to  be  as  cross  as  two  sticks 
when  the  men  come  in.  Because  father  says  he 
'  'ates  'oarding  money/  and  mother  says,  '  Fetch 
me  them  things/  we  don't  love  them  or  admire 
and  respect  them  any  less.  But  it  would  be  ab- 
surd of  us,  who  know  better,  to  go  on  saying  the 
same  when  we  know  that  it's  correct  to  say  '  hate 
hoarding'  and  '  those  things/  If  ever  I  have  a 
child,"  Polly  went  on,  "  I  shall  be  most  particular 
about  her  surroundings.  I  shall  have  a  lady- 
nurse — French,  if  I  can  find  one.  And  I  shall 
cultivate  her  speech  and  manners  as  the  first  and 
foremost  consideration."  And  then  we  heard  the 
men  coming,  and  Polly  smoothed  herself  down 
into  her  usual  society  trim. 

Lord  Robert  and  Oliver  both  made  for  Polly 
and  Mr.  Knipp  made  for  me.  He  was  big  and 
rather  slow-speaking,  good-looking  enough,  for 


THE    BINKS   FAMILY.  203 

I  was  never  one  to  care  much  about  pretty  men ; 
I'd  as  soon  sit  and  admire  a  wax  dummy  in  a 
hairdresser's  window.  He  must  have  been  get- 
ting on  for  forty,  a  fine-made,  well-covered 
figure,  neither  too  fat  nor  too  thin.  I  always  did 
hate  a  man  with  a  waistcoat;  but  then,  on  the 
other  hand,  I  do  detest  a  hollow  under  the  chest 
like  some  men  have.  Now,  Mr.  Knipp  had 
neither  one  nor  the  other. 

He  was  a  brownish  man  with  a  heavy  mus- 
tache, and  very  quiet  ways  with  him.  He  wasn't 
grand  like  Oliver  Beddingham,  who  somehow 
always  reminded  me  of  that  new-fashioned  ma- 
hogany one  sees  in  the  West-End  furniture  shops. 
You  know  the  kind  I  mean — so  red  and  smooth 
and  shining,  and  yet  not  a  patch  on  the  older  kind 
that's  been  rubbed  and  rubbed  with  generations 
of  oil  and  turpentine  and  elbow-grease. 

"  Do  you  sing,  Mrs.  Beddingham  ?  Are  you 
musical  ?  "  Lord  Robert  asked  presently. 


204  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

"  I  am  passionately  fond  of  music,"  said  Polly, 
"but  my  talent  lies  in  listening." 

"  And  a  very  good  talent,  too,"  said  he.  "  And 
you,  Miss  Binks,  are  you  a  listener  or  not  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  when  I  get  it  good  enough  to  listen  to," 
I  replied.  "  But  I've  no  ambition  to  be  a  young 
lady  with  a  mandolin,  or  to  sing  nigger-songs  to 
a  banjo." 

He  laughed  as  if  I  had  said  something  out  of 
the  common  clever;  and  then  Oliver  said: 

"  But  you  sing,  Blount.  I  heard  you  the  other 
night.  It  will  be  a  perfect  treat  to  my  wife. 
She  really  and  genuinely  loves  music." 

I  must  say  it  was  news  to  me.  However,  of 
course,  Oliver  knew  Polly  much  better  than  I 
did,  so  I  couldn't  or  rather  wouldn't,  even  look 
my  surprise.  And  then  Lord  Robert  went  over 
to  the  piano,  which  was  a  grand,  covered  with 
a  lovely  embroidered  silk  fitting  cover,  and  loaded 
with  all  sorts  of  knick-knacks. 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  ao5 

"  Let  me  see,"  he  said.  "I  wrote  a  little  song 
for  Lady  Swansdown  the  other  day.  She's  so 
artistic — a  born  painter,  ruined  by  having  been 
fated  to  marry  a  marquis,  and  become  a  duchess 
in  the  natural  order  of  things.  I  think  you  would 
like  it,  Mrs.  Beddingham.  Lady  Swansdown 
said  it  haunted  her." 

"  I  know  I  shall,"  said  Polly,  setting  herself 
deep  down  in  her  chair. 

And  so  he  began  to  play  a  sort  of  dreamy  up- 
and-down  kind  of  thing,  like  arpeggio  scales  with 
a  tune  running  through  them ;  and  this  was  the 
song.  I  know  the  words,  because  he  sent  Polly 
a  copy,  and  I  took  them  from  that. 

"REMEMBER  !" 

"  Under  the  warm  southern  sky, 
We  wandered  alone,  you  and  I; 
Hand  clasped  in  hand  as  we  stood 
On  the  threshold  of  love,  in  the  wood. 
Oh — love,  will  you  ever  forget 
The  dear  days  we  our  happiness  set? 
Remember !    Remember ! 


2o6  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

"  Under  the  blue  sky  one  night, 
When  the  stars  shone  out  golden  and  bright, 
We  sat,  you  and  I,  while  our  aching  hearts  knew 
That  for  us  the  old  love  must  be  lost  in  the  new. 
Oh — love,  will  you  ever  forget 
The  old  days  ere  we  parted?    And  yet — 
Remember !    Remember ! 

"  Sometimes  in  the  lamp-light  we  meet, 
And  I  see  all  the  world  at  your  feet; 
Dear  heart,  do  you  ever  remember 
The  rapture  of  one  brief  September? 
Oh — love,  can  you  ever  forget 
The  night  that  we  passed  in  regret? 
Remember !     Remember !  " 

He  sang  it  well,  with  a  soft,  harsh  voice — I 
don't  know  if  I  make  myself  clear  in  saying  that 
his  voice  was  both  soft  and  harsh — with  hands 
that  seemed  to  drag  the  music  out  of  the  keys, 
with  eyes  half  closed,  that  seemed  to  be  looking 
back  into  the  dim  years  of  the  past,  at  the  other 
end  of  which  we  could  see  the  girl  stand  who  had 
to  choke  her  love  down  that  she  might  marry  a 
marquis,  and  one  day  become  a  duchess. 

"  It  is  too  utterly  sad  for  words,"  said  Polly, 


WHAT    ARE    YOU    THINKING    OF? 


I'D    GIVE   ANYTHING    TO    KNOW." 
— Page  207 


THE   SINKS    FAMILY.  207 

in  a  very  soft  voice.  "  Does  it  tire  you  to  sing, 
Lord  Robert?  Can  you  go  on?  I  could  listen 
for  ever." 

I  really  don't  know  how  she  could — she,  a 
respectable  married  women,  with  her  husband  sit- 
ting by !  And  for  a  song  that  had  been  written 
for  another  married  women  by  her  old  cast-off 
lover  that  she  hadn't  thought  good  enough  for  a 
husband !  I  looked  at  Lord  Robert,  and  wondered 
he  hadn't  more  pride,  at  least,  than  to  give 
strangers  as  we  were  the  clue  to  his  love  story. 

"  Miss  Binks,"  said  Mr.  Knipp  in  my  ear  at 
that  moment,  "what  are  you  thinking  of?  I'd 
give  anything  to  know." 

"  Perhaps  he's  proud  of  having  been  jilted  by 
a  duchess,"  I  rapped  out. 

He  sat  up  quite  straight. 

"  By  jove,  you  are "  he  began,  and  then  sud- 
denly stopped.  "  I  beg  your  pardon,  Miss  Binks, 
I — I — I  forget  what  I  was  going  to  say." 


zo8  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE   REIGN   OF   SIMPLICITY. 

"A  glimpse  into  another  world,  though  it  be  only,  as 
it  were,  through  an  unconsidered  chink,  is  often  enough 
to  effect  a  revolution  in  a  woman's  mind." 

AFTER  that  night  we  seemed  to  see  Mr.  Knipp 
wherever  we  went — he  was  everywhere.  Some- 
how I  couldn't  get  him  out  of  my  head.  I  dreamt 
about  him  all  that  first  night,  waking  twenty 
times  at  least,  then  dropping  off  to  sleep  again, 
and  dreaming  it  all  over  again,  until  I  could  have 
knocked  my  stupid  head  against  the  bedpost.  I 
felt  quite  washed  out  in  the  morning  and  rather 
cross ;  in  fact,  much  too  cross  to  listen  quietly  to 
my  sister's  vaporings  about  Lord  Robert  Blount. 

"  That  lovely  song,"  she  said,  rapturously. 
"  He  has  promised  to  send  me  a  copy." 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  209 

"What  for?"  I  asked,  unfeelingly.  "You 
can't  sing  it." 

Polly  shrugged  her  shoulders  in  a  fashionable 
kind  of  way,  as  if  I  was  getting  as  "  impossible  " 
as  all  the  rest  of  my  family. 

"  I  don't  sing  in  company,"  she  said,  with  mild 
reproach,  "  because  I  hate  amateurs  unless  they're 
very,  very  good,  and,  in  fact,  equal  to  the  best  pro- 
fessionals. But  I  often  sing  when  I'm  alone,  for 
my  own  amusement." 

"Oh,  do  you  really?"  I  returned.  "Yes;  I 
heard  Oliver  say  last  night  how  fond  you  are  of 
music.  When  did  you  take  up  that  notion  ?  " 

"  I've  always  loved  music,"  said  Polly,  with 
dignity.  "And  I  should  think  even  a  stone  would 
be  moved  by  such  a  lovely  song  as  that  one  Lord 
Robert  sang  last  night.  It  has  never  been  out 
of  my  head  since.  *  Remember !  Remember ! ' ' 

I  laughed  outright. 

"  Oh,  well,  if  it  pleases  you  to  like  a  song  writ- 


210  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

ten  for  another  .woman,  I  don't  mind.  I  wonder 
if  Lady  Swansdown,  who'll  be  the  Duchess  of 
Poultry  one  day,  would  be  pleased  if  she  knew 
he  gives  her  away  every  time  he  sings  the  song. 
I  shouldn't  think  she  would." 

"  A  woman  of  fashion  like  that  minds  nothing 
in  the  way  of  publicity,"  said  Polly.  "  But  tell 
me,  you  dear,  cross  old  thing,  how  did  you  like 
Mr.  Knipp?" 

"  He  seems  nice  enough,"  I  replied  guardedly. 

"  Oliver  thinks  an  awful  lot  of  him,"  Polly  went 
on.  "  He  has  a  tremendous  position  on  'Change. 
By  the  way,  I  asked  him  to  go  to  the  Lyceum 
with  us  to-night.  We  have  a  box,  you  know." 

It  was  very  queer,  I  couldn't  make  it  out  at 
all,  but  my  heart  began  thumping  like  a  sledge- 
hammer at  the  prospect  of  so  soon  seeing  him 
again. 

"  So  I  asked  him  to  dine  here  at  a  quarter  to 
seven,  and  he  is  going  to  take  us  all  to  the  Golden 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  211 

Grill  to  supper  afterward.     Of  course,  the  Golden 
Grill  is  the  smart  place  for  supper  this  season." 

Mr.  Knipp  did  dine  with  us,  and  we  drove  up 
to  the  theater  in  good  time  for  the  performance, 
and  he  sat  next  to  me,  and  talked  to  me  between 
the  acts,  and  I  enjoyed  myself  thoroughly. 

Polly,  on  the  other  hand,  was  too  much  taken 
up  with  the  audience  to  pay  much  attention  to 
the  play. 

"  Oliver,"  she  said,  for  about  the  sixth  time, 
"  is  there  nobody  you  know  here  ?  " 

"  Not  a  single  soul,"  was  his  reply. 

"  So  odd,"  she  exclaimed,  in  quite  a  vexed 
tone,  "  to  come  to  a  theater  and  not  see  a  soul 
we  know." 

"  But  you  didn't  come  to  see  people,  Polly,"  I 
put  in ;  "  you  came  to  see  the  play." 

"  Yes,  yes ;  of  course.  But  it  does  seem  so 
very  strange.  So  many  people  as  we  know, 
too." 


212  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

.  "  I  see  somebody  I  know  by  sight,  Mrs.  Bed- 
dingham,"  said  Mr.  Knipp  at  that  moment.  "  The 
lady  Lord  Robert  was  talking  about  last  night — 
Lady  Swansdown." 

She  was  all  eagerness  in  a  moment. 

"Oh!    Where?    Where?    Do  show  me!" 

"  In  that  box  opposite,"  said  he. 

Polly  turned  her  opera-glasses  straight  upon 
the  occupants  of  the  opposite  box,  in  which  two 
ladies  were  sitting  and  several  men. 
,     "  Which  is  her  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  The  one  in  black,  with  fair  hair." 

Polly  gave  a  sort  of  gasp.  I  confess  that  I, 
too,  was  surprised,  for  I  had  pictured  Lady 
Swansdown,  the  heroine  of  "  Remember !  "  as  a 
very  different  kind  of  person.  She  was  very 
fair,  slightly  haggard,  but  with  a  stylish,  weird 
kind  of  beauty,  very  stylish,  if  rather  unearthly. 
Her  gown  was  like  nothing  I  had  ever  seen  be- 
fore, and  I  flattered  myself  I  had  seen  a  few 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  213 

gowns  in  my  time;  it  made  me  remember  my 
advice  the  previous  day  to  Polly,  to  wear  her 
plainest  black  frock.  It  was,  as  far  as  I  could 
see,  nothing  but  fold  upon  fold  of  black  crepe  de 
chine,  which  seemed  to  melt  wherever  there  were 
edges  into  softer  frothings  of  chiffon.  These 
were  caught  up  on  one  shoulder  with  a  great 
flaming  sun  of  diamonds,  and  not  another  sign 
of  a  jewel  could  I  see  about  her,  not  even  on  her 
hands,  for  her  bare  left  hand  was  resting  on  the 
edge  of  the  box,  and  bore  nothing  but  her  broad 
wedding  ring. 

"  Very  curious-looking  woman,  isn't  she  ? " 
said  Mr.  Knipp. 

Polly  caught  her  breath. 

"  She's  a  perfect  dream  of  stylishness,"  she 
said,  in  a  tone  that  was  distinctly  reproving; 
"  quite  fit  to  be  the  keynote  of  such  a  song  as 
'Remember!'" 

I  had  very  hard  work  to  keep  from  laughing 


8i4  THE   B1NKS   FAMILY. 

aloud,  and  Mr.  Knipp  muttered,  "Oh,  Lord!" 
under  his  breath.  Really,  Polly  could  make  her- 
self ridiculous,  and  often  did. 

Before  I  went  home,  which  I  did  at  the  end 
of  the  week,  I  saw  that  the  reign  of  severe  sim- 
plicity had  set  in.  She  never  put  on  one  of  her 
best  frocks,  but  every  evening  wore  little  simple 
gowns  that  she  might  have  put  on  her  young; 
daughter  of  fifteen  had  she  possessed  one.  And 
she  left  off  wearing  her  rings,  and  wore  nothing; 
but  a  big  diamond  arrow  on  one  side  of  her 
bodice.  And  all  day  long  she  hummed  or  sang; 
little  snatches  of  Lord  Robert's  song,  so  that  her 
conversation  got  to  be  something  like  this — 

"Anna,  dearest,  do  you  happen  to  be  writing 
to  Mother  to-day?  Because  if  you  are 

'  Sometimes  in  the  lamp-light  we  meet, 
And  I  see  all  the  world  at  your  feet.' 

I  didn't  get  the  time  there,  did  I  ?  " 

"  If  you're  going  in  for  singing  I'd  take  les- 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  215 

sons  if  I  were  you,"  I  said  unfeelingly  one  day. 

"  I  think  I  shall,"  said  she. 

"But  about  Mother.  Why  did  you  want  to 
know  if  I  was  writing  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  wanted  you  to  ask  her Dear  me  I 

what  was  I  thinking  of?    Let  me  think  a  min- 
ute. 
'  We  sat,  you  and  I,  while  our  aching  hearts  knew.' w 

"  No,  you  didn't,"  I  put  in  bluntly ;  "  you  did 
nothing  of  the  kind.  You  married  your  first  and 
only  love,  and  he  has  never  looked  at  any  one 
else  since,  and  neither  have  you.  So  do  stop 
that  horrid  caterwauling  ditty,  and  tell  me  what 
you  want  me  to  say  to  Mother." 

Polly  turned  on  me  with  a  look  of  surprise, 
"  Really,  Anna,"  she  said,  with  a  sudden  assump- 
tion of  dignity ;  "  really,  Anna." 

She  didn't  ask  me  to  prolong  my  visit,  and  I 
was  very  glad  of  it.  Even  if  it  was  rather  dull 
down  in  Dovedale,  and  some  of  the  people  round 


216  THE   BINKS   FAMILY. 

about  did  turn  up  their  noses  a  little  more  than 
nature  intended,  life  wasn't  as  irritating  as  it 
was  at  the  Towers — life  was  life,  and  was  lived  in 
a  reasonable,  earnest  kind  of  way,  and  not  as  if 
it  were  all  make-believe.  Father  and  Mother, 
though  they  had,  bit  by  bit,  launched  out  into  a 
totally  different  life  to  what  they  had  lived  be- 
fore, did  live  their  life  off  their  own,  so  to 
speak.  And  that,  I  believe,  was  why  Mother 
went  down  with  really  good  people  as  she  did. 
You  see,  she  never  tried  to  make  herself  out  one 
tiny  scrap  better  than  she  was.  "You  must  take 
me  as  I  am  or  leave  me,"  she  said  once  or  twice.  "I 
am  glad  to  give  you  a  hearty  welcome  to  my 
house,  and  a  knife  and  fork  at  my  table ;  but  as 
for  being  stylish,  as  the  girls  call  it,  and  caring 
whether  it's  polite  or  not  to  take  a  chair  without 
asking,  I  really  can't.  My  manners  are  old- 
fashioned  like  myself." 

So  Mother  never  did  anything  beause  it  was 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  217 

fashionable  or  etiquette  or  anything  else.  I  did 
get  her  to  look  at  "  Hints  "  once,  and  she  sat 
down  and  studied  it  right  through  just  as  if  it 
had  been  a  story-book. 

"  Anna,  my  child,"  she  said,  "I  should  never 
keep  all  this  in  mind — never.  Don't  ask  me  to 
go  by  it,  for  I  should  only  get  addled,  and  make 
worse  mistakes  than  if  I  was  left  in  my  igno- 
rance. I'm  too  old  to  learn  new  ways  now,  my 
dear." 

And  I  am  sure  everyone  liked  her  very  much 
better  as  she  was,  simple  and  dignified  and  natural, 
than  they  would  have  done  if  she  had  started 
shaking  hands  about  the  level  of  her  eyebrows, 
and  had  carefully  got  up  the  latest  slang  of  the 
day.  Mind  you,  I  didn't  always  think  so.  Time 
was  when  I  had  positively  blushed  at  Mother's 
homeliness,  and  had  felt  that  I  would  just  have 
given  anything  to  have  a  mother  that  looked 
stylish  and  could  sail  into  a  room  and  freeze  peo- 


2i8  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

pie  if  need  be.  But  that  was  before  Polly  got 
to  be  such  a  grand  lady,  and  I  felt  it  a  perfect 
relief  when  I  found  myself  at  home  once  more 
with  some  one  who  didn't  spend  all  her  time  play- 
ing at  broken-hearted  duchesses. 

I  had  been  at  home  nearly  a  week  when  I  had 
a  letter  from  Mr.  Knipp. 

"DEAR  Miss  BINKS"   (it  said), 

"  If  it  is  quite  agreeable  to  you,  I  should 
very  much  like  to  come  down  to  call  on  you  on 
Sunday  afternoon,  for  the  purpose  of  making 
your  father  and  mother's  acquaintance,  and  of 
renewing  my  acquaintance  with  you.  I  gather 
from  my  friend  Beddingham  that  your  station 
is  only  a  mile  or  so  from  the  house. 

"  Believe  me,  very  truly  yours, 
"  THOMAS  HAYNES  KNIPP." 

.  "  And  who  is  he  ?  "  asked  Mother. 

"  A  friend  of  Oliver's.  He's  nice.  You'll  like 
him,"  I  replied.  "  He  isn't  stuck-up  or  silly  or 
stupid.  A  straight,  quiet,  good-looking  man,  a 
gentleman,  without  being  too  grand  to  put  his 
foot  in  his  mouth." 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  219 

"  Then  you  had  better  write  and  ask  him  to 
come  down  to  lunch  on  Sunday,"  Mother  said, 
her  mind  flying  to  hospitality  at  once.  "  He  can 
go  by  the  12.15  train  from  town,  and  we'll  send 
to  meet  him." 

I  wrote  to  Mr.  Knipp  to  that  effect,  and  he  an- 
swered joyfully  accepting  the  invite.  And  then 
if  Polly  and  Oliver  didn't  send  a  wire  late  on 
the  Saturday  night  saying  that  they  were  com- 
ing down  by  that  train,  and  would  we  send  to 
meet  them  ?  I  really  was  vexed,  and  Polly  made 
such  a  mouthful  of  it  too  when  we  met  and  she 
came  up  to  my  room  to  take  off  her  big  black 
hat  and  a  soft  lace  scarf  that  was  bunched  up 
about  her  throat. 

"  I  could  hardly  believe  my  eyes  when  I  saw 
the  invincible  bachelor  waiting  about  on  the  plat- 
form," she  exclaimed.  "  And  he  quite  blushed 
when  he  owned  that  he  was  coming  down  here. 
How  came  vou  to  ask  him  ?  " 


220  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

"  I  didn't  ask  him ;  he  asked  himself  to  call," 
I  replied.  "And  then  Mother  said  I'd  better 
ask  him  to  lunch." 

"  Quite  right.  I  shall  devote  myself  to  mother 
all  the  afternoon,  and  give  Oliver  a  hint  to  go 
out  and  interest  himself  in  cows  and  things.  My 
dear,  I'm  delighted." 

It  turned  out  that  for  all  her  fine-lady  airs 
Polly  had  a  few  grains  of  common  sense  down  at 
the  bottom;  for,  really,  she  cleared  out  of  my 
way  in  the  most  wonderful  manner.  She  waited 
till  Oliver  had  suggested,  in  his  most  new  ma- 
hogany tones,  to  Father  that  they  should  take  a 
turn  round  the  farm,  telling  him  that  he  was  par- 
ticularly anxious  to  see  the  little  Jersey  that  had 
taken  first  prizes  everywhere  that  season. 

Father  rose  to  that  bait  at  once.  "I'll  go 
round  with  pleasure;  and  I  tell  you,  sir,  though 
I  say  it  as  shouldn't,  that  there's  not  such  a  beauty 
as  Tender-eyed  Leah  to  be  found  in  the  length 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  221 

and  breadth  of  the  land.  Milk's  my  business  and 
milch  cattle  are  my  hobby.  She's  well  worth  all 

she's  cost  me,  and  that's "    And  then  he  took 

Oliver  by  the  arm,  and  led  him  away,  still  talk- 
ing hard  on  the  merits,  perfections,  and  beauties 
of  Tender-eyed  Leah. 


232  THE  BINKS   FAMILY. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

TENDER-EYED  LEAH. 
"  Faint  heart  never  won  fair  lady." 

WHEN  Father  and  Oliver  Beddingham  had 
gone  off  to  see  Tender-eyed  Leah,  Polly  turned 
to  Mother,  with  a  careless  kind  of  air,  and  said — 

"  I  hope  Father  isn't  offended  at  my  not  go- 
ing to  look  at  the  cows.  The  fact  is  I  have  very 
thin  shoes  on,  and  I'm  afraid  of  catching  a  chill. 
And  besides  that,  I  particularly  want  to  ask  you 
something.  That  was  why  we  came  down  to- 
day." 

"  I'm  sure  Father  doesn't  mind,  one  way  or 
another,"  said  Mother,  smiling.  "  None  of  you 
children  can  ever  think  you  don't  find  your  wel- 
come waiting  for  you  at  home  whenever  you  like 
to  come  for  it.  It  seems  so  queer,"  she  went  on, 


'THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  223 

"how  some  mothers  alter  to  their  children  after 
they're  married.  Only  the  other  day  young  Mrs. 
Le  Strange,  the  daughter  of  Miss  Tellum,  the 
great  novelist,  was  here.  She  lives  over  at  Thor- 
ganton,  you  know.  She  was  telling  me  that  she 
wanted  to  run  up  to  town  for  a  few  days  to  get 
some  frocks,  only  she  didn't  know  whether  her 
mother  could  do  with  her.  '  Perhaps  her  house 
isn't  very  large,'  said  I.  '  Oh,  yes,  it  is,'  she  re- 
plied ;  '  it's  a  large  house,  but  my  mother  is  so 
awfully  particular  about  our  manner  to  her  since 
we  were  married.  It  would  be  lovely  if  we  could 
wire  up  to  say  we  were  coming,  but  we  can't. 
We  always  have  to  write  a  week  or  so  before,  and 
ask  if  it  would  be  convenient  to  her  to  receive 
us.'  It  seems  downright  unnatural,"  Mother 
ended ;  "  for  surely  if  there's  one  place  in  the 
world  that  children,  whether  married  or  single, 
ought  to  be  able  to  go  to  without  an  invite,  it's  to 
their  mother's." 


224  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

"  They  say  cats  always  turn  against  their  kit- 
tens when  they've  once  left  them,"  said  Polly. 
"  And  I  read  such  a  lovely,  touching  article  the 
other  day  by  Miss  Tellum  on  mother  love.  Well, 
Mother,  darling,  none  of  yours  will  ever  pain  you 
in  that  way.  And  now,  I  want  to  carry  you  off, 
dear,  so  perhaps  Anna  will  show  Mr.  Knipp 
round  the  gardens  and  look  after  him  a  little." 

Mr.  Knipp  got  up,  and,  with  a  little  bow,  de- 
clared that  the  main  object  of  his  life  was  to 
see  the  Dove  Hall  gardens.  So  he  and  I  went 
off  together,  and  left  Mother  and  Polly  to  have 
their  chat  undisturbed. 

We  went  out  by  the  front  door,  and  along  the 
terrace,  down  the  steps,  and  into  the  rosary.  I 
showed  him  everything.  Never  was  a  garden 
better  shown,  for  I  missed  not  a  point,  and  neither 
did  he;  he  was  as  good  a  sightseer  as  I  was  a 
showman.  We  went  all  through  the  houses,  and 
then  through  the  stables,  although,  being  Sun- 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  225 

day  afternoon,  only  one  of  the  boys  was  to  be 
seen.  And  after  that  I  asked  him  if  he  would 
like  to  go  down  and  see  the  swans  and  the  new 
Canadian  ducks  on  the  ornamental  water  which 
ran  at  the  foot  of  the  wilderness. 

There  was  a  queer  little  summer-house  at  the 
very  end  of  the  water,  a  funny  little  place  that 
had  been  put  there  at  the  suggestion  of  the  land- 
scape gardener  as  being  a  pleasant,  cool  spot  for 
smoking  in,  or  for  afternoon  tea  in  hot  weather, 
or  for  resting  in  in  winter  when  the  water  was 
frozen  over  and  we  should  all  be  skating  upon 
it.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  never  had  used  it  at 
all,  for  Father  was  a  chilly  soul,  and  liked  his 
pipe  in  his  own  den  and  in  his  own  big  easy- 
chair  better  than  anywhere  else.  "  I  wasn't  bred 
up  to  smoking  my  pipe  like  a  nobleman,"  he 
used  to  say,  when  I  hinted  that  he  never  made 
use  of  his  grand  smoking  pavilion.  As  for 
Mother,  well  used  as  she  had  got  to  her  new  life, 


226  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

with  a  butler  to  carve  her  dinner  and  a  maid  to 
dress  her  hair,  the  one  thing  she  could  not  get 
used  to  was  having  meals  out-of-doors.  She  ob- 
jected to  the  horrid  insects  that  always  seemed  to 
be  dropping  about  in  the  garden.  So  we,  not 
having  any  ice,  never  had  used  the  little  pavilion 
by  the  water,  and  I  don't  know  that  I  had  ever 
sat  down  in  it  before  until  I  went  in  with  Mr. 
Knipp,  and  he  proposed  that  we  should  rest  a  bit 
and  look  over  the  sunlit  water,  on  which  the 
swans  and  ducks  were  all  swimming  about  in  per- 
fect happiness. 

"  It's  awfully  jolly  here,  Miss  Binks,"  he  said, 
when  we  had  thoroughly  discussed  the  water  and 
the  ducks  and  the  pavilion. 

"Yes;  isn't  it?"  I  rejoined. 

"  You  didn't  think  it  a  great  piece  of  cheek  on 
my  part  asking  myself  down,  I  hope?" 

"  Oh,  no,  not  at  all.  We  were  delighted  to 
see  you,"  I  replied. 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  227 

"  It  was  awfully  nice  of  your  mother  to  ask 
me  to  lunch,  too,"  he  went  on.  "  How  very  nice 
she  is !  And  your  father,  too." 

"  Oh,  do  you  really  think  so  ?  "  I  exclaimed, 
rather  impulsively. 

"  Yes,  by  Jove,  that  I  do.  I  do  like  a  man  to 
be  thoroughly  interested  in  his  life's  business  and 
to  be  expert  at  his  own  work,  no  matter  what  it 
is.  One  can  see  that  your  father  is  heart  and 
soul  in  his  Jerseys." 

"  Oh,  he  is,  Mr.  Knipp,"  I  went  on,  all  in  a 
hurry.  "  I'm  so  glad  you  like  my  father  and 
mother.  I  can't  bear  people  who  turn  up  their 
noses  at  them  because  they're  not  fine  lady  and 
gentleman.  They're  both  so  good  and  so  gener- 
ous and  so  genuine,  and  every  day  I  live  I  admire 
and  respect  and  love  them  more  for  being  just 
what  they  are." 

"  And,  by  Jove,  you've  every  cause  to,"  he 
cried  admiringly.  "  You  don't  know  just  how 


228  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

I  feel  about  these  things.  Look  here,  I  came 
down  to-day  with  a  special  reason.  I've  a  story 
to  tell  you  and  a  question  to  ask  you.  People 
often  wonder  why  I've  never  married.  I'm  rich, 
very  rich,  as  perhaps  Mrs.  Beddingham  has  told 
you.  She  has  often  chaffed  me  about  my  single 

state,  because Oh,  well,  as  he  has  often  put 

it,  I  might  marry  a  duke's  daughter.  That's  all 
rot,  you  know,  for  duke's  daughters  don't  go 
around  begging,  and  they  don't,  as  a  rule,  marry 
City  men.  But  seriously,  I  dare  say  I  might 
have  married  over  and  over  again,  but  for  one 
reason " 

"That  is ?" 

"  I  never  cared  to  tell  the  story  of  my  life  to 
any  woman  before  I  met  you,"  he  said  simply. 

"And  you  will  tell  it  to  me?" 

"  If  you  will  listen.  Miss  Binks,  what  first  at- 
tracted me  to  you  was  something  you  said  about 
your  father.  Fathers  and  mothers  have  a  great 


HIS   VOICE   DROPPED    ALMOST    TO    A   WHISPER. — Page   22Q 


THE   BINKS   FAMILY.  229 

attraction  for  me.  I  never  knew  my  mother,  for, 
poor  girl,  she  died  when  I  was  only  two  days 
old.  As  for  a  father,  I  never  had  one."  His 
voice  dropped  almost  to  a  whisper,  and  a  dull 
burning  red  color  overspread  his  face.  But  his 
eyes,  blue  and  resolute  still,  looked  straight  into 
mine. 

"  Why  have  you  told  me  this  ?  "  I  asked.  My 
voice,  like  my  hands,  was  trembling. 

"  May  I  say  why  ?  Oh,  surely  you  understand 
that  you,  with  your  clear,  sensible  mind,  you,  with 
your  happy  home-life,  with  your  good-hearted, 
honest,  loving  married  father  and  mother,  have 
attracted  me  as  I  have  never  known  what  it  was 
to  be  attracted  by  any  woman  in  all  my  life. 
Anna,  will  you  have  me?  I'm  not  your  equal," 
he  added,  very  humbly —  "  but  will  you  have 
me?" 

"  My  dear,"  I  said  gently,  "  I'm  the  proudest 
girl  in  England  this  day." 


23o  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

And  so  we  got  engaged,  Tom  and  I.  I  made 
him  tell  me  everything  that  he  knew.  How  he 
had  been  brought  up  at  a  respectable  farmhouse 
in  the  country;  how  a  mysterious  guardian  law- 
yer had  sent  him  to  a  good  school,  had  paid  all  his 
clothing  bills,  given  him  ample  pocket-money; 
and  how,  at  eighteen,  he  had  been  sent  for  to  this 
lawyer's  office,  and  had  then  been  told  the  tragedy 
of  his  birth  and  his  poor  little  mother's  death.  He 
had  been  told  that  he  would  be  well  started  in 
life,  and  that  the  rest  would  depend  on  himself. 
He  had  begged  to  know  the  name  of  his  father, 
but  was  told  that  this  could  never  under  any 
circumstances  be  disclosed. 

From  that  moment  he  had  vowed  that  he  would 
prove  himself  worthy  of  his  betrayed  mother  and 
of  his  hard-hearted  father.  He  had  deliberately 
chosen  to  become  a  member  of  the  Stock  Ex- 
change, not  because  his  way  had  been  thrown 
much  among  City  men,  but  because  he  believed 


THE   BINKS    FAMILY.  231 

stock-broking  to  be  a  profession  at  which  he 
could  rise  to  great  fortune  and  power.  His  wish 
had  been  acceded  to  instantly.  He  had  been  en- 
tered as  a  pupil  at  a  great  stock-broking  house, 
he  was  told  that  four  hundred  a-year  would  be 
his  allowance  until  he  came  of  age,  and  that  when 
he  was  ready  to  find  a  partner,  the  necessary 
money  would  be  forthcoming;  and  this  after- 
wards proved  to  be  no  more  than  the  truth. 

And  to-day  Knipp  and  Bartle  was  one  of  the 
most  solid  and  respected  firms  in  all  the  city  of 
London,  and  he  had  asked  me  to  be  his  wife. 

"  I  think,  dear  Tom,"  I  said,  "  that  we'll  tell 
Father  and  Mother ;  but  as  to  the  others,  I  don't 
see  that's  any  business  of  theirs.  Do  you  ?  " 

"I  don't  care  in  the  least  now,"  he  said.  "  They 
are  your  people;  you  must  do  just  as  you  like 
about  it." 

"  Well,  then,  we'll  keep  it  just  to  ourselves  and 
them,"  I  said.  "  And  now  if  you  want  to  make 


232  THE   BINKS    FAMILY. 

Father  very  happy  you'll  come  in  to  tea — I  heard 
the  bell  ring— and  then  you'll  ask  him  to  take 
you  to  see  Tender-eyed  Leah." 

THE  END. 


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